


a mystery in watercolor

by ismycapsloudenoughforyou



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, M/M, Memory Loss, a Hot Take on modern hogwarts, from an oc's pov but also harry plays a pretty large role, ginny is a BAMF and all the students recognize this, harry's the dada professor bc that's the only logical conclusion to his arc, i mention a plot point in a one off conversation and never bring it up again but just so you know, mild spoilers for Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery: Year 5, not featuring the next gen characters bc i ain't fuckin w cursed child thx, ron works w mental health and WWW, so it's not just me hecking around, wizard memes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22170916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ismycapsloudenoughforyou/pseuds/ismycapsloudenoughforyou
Summary: On the second of May, 1998, Fred Weasley went missing in the final battle of the Second Wizarding War.Decades later, Kayleigh Barnes moved from America to London, and found a portrait in a hidden room whose occupant claimed to have been trapped there. Trouble is, he doesn't remember anything beyond that. Now it's up to her to jog his memory and get him out.
Relationships: Fred Weasley & Original Character(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 29





	1. england gets whimsical alleys and castles, and i get a walmart

**Author's Note:**

> literally all this came from me watching callmekevin's harry potter game videos and there was a quidditch player portrait yelling for his attention in one bit. for like 10 seconds. that's it. that's all.
> 
> and i wrote 23k words.
> 
> anyway, i promise the canon characters play semi large roles and i didn't mess up their personalities too bad
> 
> please enjoy

On the second of May, 1998, Fred Weasley went missing in the final battle of the Second Wizarding War. On the eighth of May, 1998, he was officially declared deceased. His family and friends didn’t want to believe it, but there was too much evidence for it. After all, the only thing that could keep Fred from his twin had to be death.

Decades later, Kayleigh Barnes moved from America to London, and  _ hell _ was she hoping for a better time of it.

See, Kayleigh had learned a few things at her old school, not the least of which being that the best way to get answers was to find them herself. Because sure, the teachers  _ said _ no question was stupid, but when she’d asked about who made new spells they’d looked at her like she was batshit off her rocker. She’d turned very red and sank into her seat and resolved never to do that again. Needless to say, she developed an unfortunate habit of never taking anything to adults.

Which in part lead to her family’s move to London (another thing she’d had to handle single-handedly; she loved her parents but they were non-magical and she’d had to deal with school herself).

London, England posed a whole host of problems in and of itself. It was huge, and it was cramped, and it was crowded, and it was  _ old _ . There was so much history tangible in the air (which wasn’t necessarily a problem, but it was unsettling for a while), and the buildings and houses were so old and so small and it was  _ weird _ . She was a good midwestern girl and the cramped space drove her up the wall.

And there was also the deal with her accent. It was silly, but she couldn’t help being self conscious. It pegged her as American and everyone knew Americans were assholes. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, though, so she just didn’t talk if she didn’t have to. It. . . worked. Somewhat.

One thing she did appreciate: school supplies were a lot more fun to get. Not to find, unfortunately, but she finally managed after a few hours of wandering while her parents were at work. A pub called  _ The Leaky Cauldron _ was suspicious enough on its own, but when she saw all manner of people coming in and out, including families with children far too young to be drinking, even in England, she took a chance and checked it out.

The shops were so bright and strange and tilted and  _ wonderful _ . It was a lot more like what she’d been expecting when she’d learned she was a witch (the shop back home was hidden in the frozen food section of a Walmart; not exactly the most magical of locations). She spent more of the day wandering the street-- _ Diagon Alley _ , she heard from a family nearby--than she did finding her supplies, in no small part so she’d have an excuse to come back.

There was this cheery and colorful shop that she’d wandered into once, down the street. It was  _ wonderful _ , with all its whizzing devices and colorful packaging and standing in the middle of the crowded storefloor she was struck with the impression that it extended forever above her. Of course, it couldn’t; the building itself wasn’t that tall. But she couldn’t help the impression.

And she couldn’t believe some of the products lining the shelves, all sorts of new innovations she’d never seen. Extendable Ears, Trick Wands,  _ Weather in a Bottle! _ She could hardly believe her eyes. Everyone back home thought she was nuts for wanting to develop something new, and here were all sorts of products with their creation dates less than a few decades ago.

“See anything you like?”

She flinched and spun to see a man leaning against the stair railing a few feet away, smartly dressed in a tux and with strikingly ginger hair, grinning at her. Embarrassed, she ducked her head. “Just browsing.”

He nodded. “Thought so.”

Now that was an odd reaction.

He pushed away from the railing, sauntering over. “Weather in a Bottle, eh?” he noted. “Good choice. Planning on snowing in your living room?”

She shrugged, feeling her cheeks heat. “Just curious.” She could feel her hands start to tremble and hurried to put the bottle back on the shelf (while trying not to look like she was hurrying).

“Just,” he echoed, sticking his hands in his pockets with an easy swagger (she admired how entirely in his element he looked--or perhaps the word was closer to ‘envied’). “Well, if you don’t mind my asking, any particular reason you’re looking for their production date?”

If her blush hadn’t spread to her ears she’d find a hat and eat it. “Just curious,” she repeated. Feeling like a broken record, she hastily added, “I didn’t know wizards had made any kind of new technology in the past century.”

She immediately regretted opening her mouth and buried her hands in her pockets, face burning. ‘ _ Wizards _ ’ she’d said, had she  _ really _ said-- well she’d never really felt like ‘part of the club’ back ho- in America, but  _ still _ . Thirty seconds into her first conversation with a British wizard and not only had she othered herself but no doubt she’d offended him too, god  _ damnit _ , she wished she knew an invisibility spell.

To her surprise, he just laughed. “Well, you’re not far off,” he said cheerfully. “It’s not very encouraged to break the mould and make something new. Why my brother and I--” he got a wistful sort of misty look in his eyes-- “when we started making things, it drove our mum crazy. But we didn’t stop, and now, well.” He gestured grandly to the crowded shop around them.

She couldn’t form words around the anxious lump in her throat so she just smiled and nodded.

He turned back to her, smiled, tapped his cheek, and winked. “Smoke Bombs, second floor by the east window. For when you want to disappear.”

A great cloud of smoke bellowed up from the floor, and when it cleared a few seconds later, he was gone.

(despite being dangerously close to her budget, she bought a few. Just in case)

  
  


She managed to avoid the train. Small victories.

As a transfer, she was provided with transport to the school via the Knight Bus (a terrifying, three story bus with a color she rather appreciated; they drove like madmen and arrived in only a few minutes) a day before the start of term to meet the headmistress and get sorted.

“Kayleigh, yeah?” the huge man with the lantern asked as she stepped off the bus.

“Yes,” she said, even though her given name made her die inside (it was better not to correct him).

“Yeh need help carryin’ yer things?”

“I think I’ve got it,” she said, hefting her backpack onto her back and taking the handles of her suitcases.

“Yer sure?”

She nodded. He shrugged and turned, the lantern swinging. “This way, Kayleigh!”

They made their way up the dirt path, her suitcases bouncing loudly with each step (she couldn’t help cringing at how noisy they were).

“ ‘S a shame you couldn’t come across on the boats with the firs’ years,” Hagrid (as he’d introduced himself) said. “Castle’s beautiful at night; it’s a great firs’ sight for the newbies.”

She didn’t really know how to respond to that, but he didn’t seem to need her to, as he continued, “Well, the view from here’s just as good.” They rounded a bend, and he paused. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”

The castle loomed over them on a hill, windows filled with glowing yellow light. It was, huge; it was  _ gorgeous _ ; she could not  _ wait _ to find as many secrets as she could. Her apprehension towards the experience melted away in an instant and suddenly the only thing she could feel was  _ excited _ . Now  _ this _ was a magic school.

Hagrid grinned at her no doubt awestruck expression, and then turned to keep walking up the path. “So,” he said, “you went to Ilvermorny?”

She shook her head. “No, too far away. The Muggle school I went to had magical classes in the portable classrooms on the lawn, so I just went to those.”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s a shame.”

“A bit underwhelming,” she admitted. “You’d think your life would change drastically but no, I just had a few extra classes on my schedule.”

They made small talk (and even some big talk) for the rest of the walk, and she found she really enjoyed his company, enough to the point where she finally asked him to call her Leah. He dropped her off at the large front doors of the castle and invited her to come down to his hut for tea sometime. She was surprised to find that she might actually take him up on the offer (usually she’d be more afraid of people she just met, but he was so genuine she couldn’t help it).

A stately woman waited on the stairs inside, with little creatures by her sides that Leah vaguely recognized as house elves (they weren’t really an American species; she’d just read about them in a book once).

“Welcome to Hogwarts. Miss Barnes, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she responded, simultaneously shrinking into herself and standing up straighter (this woman commanded respect).

“I am your headmistress. You may call me Professor McGonagall.”

“Nice to meet you,” she managed to spit out.

The woman’s face softened ever so slightly. She turned to the house elves standing beside her. “If you’ll take the young lady’s things, please.”

They hurried to take her suitcases from her. One held out a hand for her backpack, and she shifted uncomfortably. “I think I’ll hold on to this one, if that’s okay.”

“Of course, miss,” one said in a surprisingly deep voice, and then they hurried off.

“They’ll place your things in your dormitory once you’re sorted,” Professor McGonagall said. “If you’ll follow me up to my office, we’ll conduct the ceremony.”

Her hands clutching her backpack straps, she did just that.

Hogwarts castle had a lot more stairs than she was used to. Like, a lot. She really hoped they would get more than 6 minutes to get between classes; if they didn’t she might have to invest in a skateboard (she tried to imagine herself riding the railings of the large staircase room they went past, but her imagination conjured up an image of herself falling six stories to the ground and she shoved the idea away. fine, she’d be late then).

“As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, Hogwarts is very different to what you may be used to,” Professor McGonagall said, snapping her back. “We observe a very strict dress code. Casual clothes may only be worn on weekends; every other day you must wear your robes.”

Okay, she could do that. She might not  _ like _ it (she’d never worn robes at her old school), but whatever.

“In addition, our caretaker Mr. Filch has a list of items which are banned from school grounds. You would do well to follow his direction.”

She could do that too; heaven knew she didn’t want to make his job even harder. A huge castle like this, anyone would go insane.

“Classes are held between houses; your house will become like your family. Meals are also eaten as houses.”

So it was like summer camp; you travelled in groups the whole time.  _ Well that must get cliquey _ , she thought, and then,  _ oh no. My new housemates will already be a clique. _ Her nerves swarmed back. She was going to be a sixth year; they’d already spent five years together. How was she meant to break into that kind of circle?

“Houses can also earn points, for academic success or otherwise. Points may be given or taken by teachers, prefects, or the Head Girl and Boy. The house with the most points at the end of the year wins the House Cup. It’s notoriously been taken very seriously.”

She appreciated the warning. Hearing ‘house points’ had brought to mind her old science teacher with his ‘win a pencil’ system--a system absolutely no one cared about. She hadn’t ever lost them points with his system, of course, and wasn’t planning to here, but it was still a good heads up.

Professor McGonagall paused in front of two gargoyles. “Lemon drop,” she said clearly. The gargoyles moved aside to reveal a spiral staircase. She was a bit surprised that was the password (this stately woman, with such a strange, out of left field password?) but she didn’t vocalize it. The woman didn’t acknowledge it either, leading the way up the stairs.

The headmistress’s office was dimly lit, and the woman didn’t seem overly inclined to turn on any lights, instead striding to a shelf to one side and lifting up a tattered wizard’s hat.

“If you’ll put this on,” she said, motioning her closer. A bit startled, Leah hurried closer and allowed the woman to slip the hat onto her head. It was bigger than it looked, slipping down over her eyes.

“ _ Ah, an American. Not often we get those, _ ” a voice said somewhere in her head. She just barely avoided shuddering. “ _ Yes, a bit of an unpleasant sensation. You’ll get through it. _ ” She wasn’t sure if the voice was being sincere, but it continued before she could form a full thought. “ _ Now let’s see. . . loyal, very loyal. Bit distrusting though, aren’t we? _ ”

_ It’s sink or swim _ , she thought.

“ _ Sure, sure _ ,” the voice said (the hat, probably). “ _ My my, you’re very focused on learning, aren’t you? So much knowledge in your head. _ ”

_ It’s all so interesting _ , she thought honestly.  _ A whole world, and half of these things haven’t been explored. I couldn’t believe it; all these avenues of thought left open for exploration? How could I-- _

“RAVENCLAW!” the hat roared into the office. She flinched, and felt the hat get snatched from her head.

“I thought as much,” Professor McGonagall said, returning the hat to the shelf. “You head of house will be Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher.”

A clock chimed somewhere.

“The Sorting Ceremony will be starting soon,” she said. “I suggest we make our way to the Great Hall.”

“Of course,” Leah half stammered, hiking her backpack higher.

“You’ll want to stop at your dorm first, of course, to change into your robes and perhaps put that down,” McGonagall said, moving over to the desk as if she was already dismissed. “The house elves should have already put it there.” She rattled off a set of directions. “If you get lost, ask the portraits. Most of them are helpful.”

Leah nodded, thanked her, and all but ran from the office.


	2. the only things i can talk to are made from oil pastels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leah finds a portrait (and trades a couple ghost stories too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> figured i'd double up for the first one if only just to get fred into the picture. here u go.

She hadn’t been able to punch her way into the group. She’d been too apprehensive about it; they’d known each other for five years already, and how was she to fit into that kind of dynamic? She kept feeling the urge to make herself scarce at all possible opportunities. Luckily, it was a big castle, and hardly anyone wandered the halls. It was easy to lose herself, and even easier to avoid her housemates.

(she was pretty sure they thought she hated them, but she couldn’t help it; every minute she was near them she felt inadequate and stupid and out of place)

But it didn’t hurt that it was a huge castle with all kinds of rooms and passageways. She’d seen a group of Gryffindors walk through a painting and realized there must be all kinds of things to find, so she’d grabbed a notebook and started making notes. She’d mapped out the sprawling basement of her old school, so this wasn’t much different.

She’d met about half the ghosts and labelled most of the paintings she’d run across. They hadn’t had any back home, so she hadn’t realized it wasn’t normal to talk with them until a painting of a group of wealthy women drinking wine let her know (“Oh, such a sweet little dear, bless her heart! Nobody talks to us anymore”). Since then she’d made a point of acknowledging the more sociable ones. They seemed to appreciate it; they’d given away all kinds of secrets.

Like, for example, the chatty knight by the clock tower had mentioned the room on the seventh floor that appeared when you needed it. She’d tested that theory when she was. . . not in the best mental state, and it provided her with hot chocolate and a blanket and a nice alcove she could curl up in. Handy.

And the shepherdess hanging in one of the hallways near the clocktower courtyard told her how to get into the kitchens, in a roundabout manner (“Well, students aren’t supposed to be in the kitchens. . . but I remember these twins, oh-so-many years back. Oh, they caused so much trouble down there,  _ tickling the pear _ .” And she winked. It took Leah a day and a half to find which pear she meant).

She’d begun to make a habit of poking tapestries and statues to see if they concealed any passages.

Funnily enough, the best of the secrets wasn’t found on purpose.

She’d spent a bit too long chronicling a shortcut passage between the dungeons and the Divination tower and was running late for Transfiguration. Her bag banged against her side as she sprinted at breakneck speed down the hallway ( _ corridor _ , right, she was in England). She was just thanking her lucky stars that there was no one in the hallways ( _ corridors _ ) to see her.

She came up on a sharp corner going a bit too fast and reached out to rebound off the wall and keep going. At least, that was the  _ plan _ .

Instead, one hand went straight through the wall and she went tumbling sideways onto the ground.

“Fuck  _ me _ ,” she hissed, rolling over and struggling into a crouch, hands stretched in front of her. It was pitch black, even though the hall-  _ corridor _ had been well lit. She reached for her phone but switched gears to seize her wand instead. Curse Hogwarts and their lack of technology (something she had yet to find a workaround for; her tech sat powered off in her dorm). “ _ Lumos _ .”

She was in a small, dark room with a thick layer of dust on the floor. Sweeping her wand around the small space, it was mostly empty, except for a portrait frame, turned to face the wall. She could swear she heard something, like a muffled voice or. . . her brow furrowed and she stepped forward.

And then she heard footsteps pounding down the hall and snapped out of it like she’d been under a spell. “ _ Shit _ ,” she mumbled, stumbling back. “I-I’ll be back, promise.”

She almost thought the frame rattled against the wall, but her hand was shaking so much it could’ve just been a trick of the light. She took a few steps back, and then ran for it.

She slid into her chair just in time.

Later, Professor Flitwick introduced their lesson and set them loose. Usually she was good at this sort of thing, but the new secret room had her jittery and unfocused (the Transfiguration Professor had certainly noticed and called her out on it). She was lucky American curriculum put a lot more focus on nonverbal incantations; this stuff was old hat now.

“Oi, Barnes! Amerigirl!” someone hissed. She stiffened; there was only one person who called her that.

Sure enough, Simon Wells was leaning over the desk behind her.

“You’re crazy about ghost stories, aren’t you?” He grinned.

“Yes,” she said doubtfully.

“You know any good ones I can tell Eddie later? He got me with this  _ really _ good one about a portrait and I want to get him back.” He put his hands together and gave her pleading eyes.

Something caught her. “Portrait?”

“Yeah. It was  _ horrifying _ .” He laughed. “I jumped at portraits for a week.”

“What was the story?”

“You sure you want to know? I mean, it’s  _ freaky _ .”

“I’ll trade you a story for a story.”

“Done.”

“Miss Barnes, Mister Wells, I  _ do _ hope you can show me full mastery of the nonverbal technique, since you obviously don’t need to focus,” Flitwick squeaked threateningly from atop his stack of books.

“I was just asking for some pointers,” Simon said calmly, and absently swished his wand, setting his feather on fire. She hurried to put it out, water flooding out of her wand without a word. When she turned to face front, Flitwick was beaming at her.

“Ten points to Ravenclaw,” he said. “You’re already quite good at this, aren’t you?”

She felt her face heat all the way to her ears. “Yes sir,” she said. “In America we’re told to do nonverbal magic as often as possible.”

“Ah, you Americans,” he said, shaking his head. “So concerned with secrecy.”

She ducked her head and hid her face and focused on lifting the feather off the desk and drowning out the murmurs behind her (no doubt ‘that damn foreigner thinks she’s so much better than us’; the urge to run itched beneath her skin).

But she’d promised, so when class ended she went with Simon back to Ravenclaw Tower to find a nice nook and tell some ghost stories.

“It’s much better when Eddie tells it,” he said. “You know, maybe I’ll just have him tell it.  _ Oi, Eddie! _ ”

Edward Hudson came over, adjusting his glasses. “What’s up?”

“Amerigirl over here wants to hear your famed portrait story.”

“Oh. Well it’s not that good, Simon’s just a fraidy-cat.”

“ _ Oi! _ ”

“But I suppose if you want to hear it anyway. . .” He dropped his voice dramatically, leaning in close.

_ Deep in a castle not unlike ours, there lived a man. A king, to be precise. He filled his days with merriment, drinking and chatting and feasting to his hearts content. All was well for the king, but in the countryside, resentment was brewing. You see, he was a very selfish king, and as he steadily emptied the treasury in pursuit of more and more lavish feasts and fine wines, the kingdom began to fall apart. Infrastructure crumbled; theft and murder soared. What’s worse, anyone who tried to come to him about his actions was swiftly beheaded. Their heads studded the pikes on the castle walls. Enough was enough, his countrymen finally decided, they’d get rid of him once and for all. _

_ They made plans to march on the castle with whatever they had on hand, pitchforks and torches and the like. Their chances of victory were slim, but it was better than laying down and starving at the foot of their selfish king. _

_ A woman, a stranger, stood in the town meeting. “I have a way to be rid of him for good,” said she. “It will be secret; it will be swift; it will make him  _ **_suffer_ ** _.” _

_ All of those sounded good to the townspeople, but they were suspicious. _

_ “Why should we trust you?” they asked her. “You are but a peasant woman like the rest of us. How can you dethrone a king?” _

_ “Because if you do not, you will throw yourselves hopelessly at his gates and perish in a rain of arrows.” _

_ She wasn’t wrong, so they agreed to allow her to try her way, providing her with the things she required. _

_ An artist appeared at the king’s gates. _

_ “I have come from across the sea to see the king,” said she. “I am Cornelia Bliss, a famed painter, and I would like to make him a portrait.” _

_ The king, hearing the news, was ecstatic. “Send her in at once!” he ordered. _

_ They spent much of the afternoon prepping her workspace. The king lounged on a gilded seat, dressed in his finest clothes. She stepped up to her canvas, lifting her palette. _

_ And took the tip off her paintbrush. _

_ The king was confused. “How will you paint me without a proper brush?” he asked. _

_ “I did not come to paint you,” she said simply. _

_ Later, the peasants witnessed the woman leaving the castle with a portrait of the king under her arm. A few would swear they saw the portrait move, but most said the same thing: it was frozen in a horrified scream. _

Leah frowned. “How is that scary?”

“I asked the same thing,” Edward said. “This guy’s just afraid of everything.”

Simon shoved his shoulder. “No, it’s not  _ his _ story that gets me, it’s just that he told me that story and then--I swear to Merlin, I was walking down the Charms corridor and I heard somebody-- _ stop laughing Ed, I’m being serious!-- _ somebody was shouting like, ‘come back! I’m not a portrait, come back!’ ”

Her heart started to pound. She’d fallen through the wall there. She thought of the painting she’d found, turned to face the wall in an empty, hidden room. “And there’s no ending with like, ‘some say the painting hangs in wherever now’?”

Edward shrugged. “Not the version I was told, although I suppose any good scary story ends like that. How ‘bout this: ‘a wizard bought her painting and took notes, and then there was a serial person painter running the countryside’--metered for poetic verse, of course.”

“Maybe something like, a wizard coming back from war to find his family had mysteriously passed away while he was gone? And they had commissioned a portrait so it was all he had left of his family but it kept telling him that it was really them; they were alive and trapped in the portrait, until it eventually drove him mad and he sold it, or something.”

Edward seemed impressed. “That’s  _ much _ better.” He uncapped a pen with his teeth, scribbling something on the back of his hand. “You’re good at this.”

“She promised to tell me a story to scare you if I told her the portrait one,” Simon said. He looked at her sideways. “. . . Not sure I want her to anymore, if that’s how it’s gonna go.”

“I only know Muggle stories,” she confessed, the British word for a No-Maj rolling off her tongue (she couldn’t get  _ corridor _ , but she could get  _ Muggle _ , somehow).

“Well I’m sure Muggles know good stories too,” Edward waved her concern away (he was descended from a halfblood and a fullblood so he wasn’t incredibly inundated with Muggle customs). “Go on, I want to hear it.”

“Okay.” She shifted slightly, crossing her legs under her and sitting up straighter. “All good stories are rooted in truth, and this story happened to be from a town not far from here. . .”

  
  


Her own words echoed in her mind as she stood in front of the false wall, moonlight casting strange shadows over it.  _ All good stories are rooted in truth. _ She couldn’t sleep, thinking about that damn portrait and what Simon had said. He’d heard a voice, here.

She should  _ not _ be out so late at night; Filch was  _ so _ going to bust her, and if he didn’t one of the other professors would. Point being-- _ shit _ , dude, she should be in bed.

And instead she was staring at a wall. At way-too-late o’clock in the morning.

Well fine. If the damn thing wasn’t going to let her sleep, she wouldn’t let it sleep either, and with the image of a woman slapping pans together secured in her mind, she gripped her wand tighter and stepped through the wall.

She lit her wand without a word this time, trying not to alert whoever (or  _ what _ ever) was in the portrait to her presence. Creeping closer, she was surprised at how much smaller it was than she’d thought at first glance. She’d have no trouble lifting it. Probably she could steal it from a museum with little trouble (well, that wasn’t quite true; it wasn’t small enough to fit into her bag).

Looking at it from the back, it didn’t seem any different from the portraits in the rest of the castle. Then again, she’d only really seen a few from the back (the Fat Lady being one of them, whose name, she’d learned, had once been Margaret). From what she could see of the frame, it was sort of fancy; it looked like expensive wood, but then again she didn’t know anything about wood.

Shoot. She was stalling. Stalling wouldn’t get her to bed any faster. She steeled herself, reaching out, her fingers trailing over the edge of the frame. She held her breath, she couldn’t help it; she put her wand in her mouth and took the edges, lifting it off the wall.

Well, she tried. These damn ancient Brits and their portrait hanging techniques. It took her a couple tries to get it, which was embarrassing, but she managed eventually, holding the portrait up and examining it, squinting.

It was a portrait of a man (was he a man? she couldn’t tell how old he was). He was dressed in Muggle clothes, with messy ginger hair.

“Merlin’s beard,” he said.

She set it down quick before she dropped it.

“You actually came back,” he said.

She took her wand out of her mouth, settling onto the floor. “I said I would.” She crossed her legs. “I had class or I would’ve stuck around.”

He laughed like he couldn’t believe it, running a hand through his hair. “Merlin it’s been so long since I saw anything that wasn’t that wall. I haven’t talked to anyone in. . .” He shook his head. “Forever.”

“What’s your name, then?” she asked, because that was the question portraits were usually most pleased to get.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

She tilted her head because that wasn’t normal portrait behavior; all of them knew their names. “What?”

He started pacing (the background, she noticed, was eerily empty, not unlike the room she was sitting in). “I don’t remember,” he said again. “Because that’s the gimmick. That’s what he said-- I lost my name right away, and he said I’d just keep losing memories until I got out.”

“Wait, who didn’t mention? Get out of where?”

“Out of here, of the portrait.” He waved his hand around agitatedly. “Cause I was-- well I don’t remember what I was doing anymore. But there was this man, in these really dark robes and wearing a mask, and I guess he knocked me out or something because one second I think I was fighting him and the next second I was in a painting.” He shrugged. “ ‘Course I didn’t know that’s what it was, until he told me. He said that the longer I stayed the more of myself I would lose. His words,” he added. “So I promised myself I wouldn’t forget anything else, and then I  _ did _ .”

“Hold on.” She tapped her wand against her knee, and then remembered that was her light source and stopped. “That-- doesn’t make sense. Some guy traps you in a painting and then-- what, just dumps you in a secret room of a school? Why? Why not spirit you off to his evil house to watch or something?”

“How should I know? He’s evil!”

She flinched, his voice echoing off the empty walls. The dust on the floor did nothing to dampen the sound.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout,” he said.

“ ‘S fine,” she huffed, pulling her knees to her chest.

He rubbed a hand across his face. “I’ve been stuck so long I think I’m going crazy.”

She was about to respond, but her watch beeped shrilly and cut her off. “Oh,  _ crap _ ,” she swore, shooting to her feet.

He seemed concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just late as all hell get out and I have class--” she checked the time-- “in like, four hours.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I can’t sleep on the floor.” She brushed the dust from her robes. “I’ll come back, I promise.”

He seemed kind of comforted by that. With one last ferocious swipe she resettled her robes, turning for the false wall.

“Wait,” he said. She glanced back, suddenly struck by how small and alone he looked. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Been in the painting so long I guess I’ve lost my manners; mum would throw a fit. What’s your name?”

Magic was a tricky thing. She’d read a lot on the fae; she knew damn well that names had power. Did her legal name hold more power than her preferred name, though? Would it be fine if she just didn’t give him all of them?

“Kayleigh,” she finally said.

“Kayleigh,” he echoed. “Nice to meet you, Kayleigh.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mystery Man.” She offered him a smile.  _ Now I gotta haul ass before someone catches me _ .

Killing her light, she ducked out of the room.

  
  


Nobody caught her that night, or the next day, or the morning after that, or the afternoon after that. She kept finding times to slip into the room, a different time each day in hopes that no one would catch onto her movements. The man in the painting joked about that a couple times (“How am I supposed to anticipate your arrival, o savior of mine?”) but she figured if he couldn’t anticipate her then neither could anyone else.

He’d taken to calling her that: ‘savior of mine’. “Saving you from what?” she’d asked.

“Boredom,” he’d said.

“Right.” She’d laughed. “Well I’d save that title for someone who deserves it. My only competition is a wall; it’s hardly fair.”

She’d also taken to spending more time in the library than wandering the halls. Her Ravenclaw status worked in her favor there; the librarian had grudging acceptance of her presence. Unfortunately, from what she’d read, things weren’t looking good for her painted friend. The only account of something like this happening outside Eddie’s ghost story had incidentally happened at Hogwarts shortly before the whole Second Wizarding War thing, during a rash of Cursed Vaults appearing. The book she’d read called it a ‘portrait curse’, connecting it to the Cursed Vaults. The book said someone tampering with a Vault had caused several students to go missing and later reappear trapped in portraits. That wasn’t what this was, though; the illustration of the Portrait Vault didn’t look anything like the empty room and the mystery man’s story didn’t match up. She’d have to keep looking.

(and besides, the book said the longer a person remained in the portrait, the more portrait-like they would become; the man had been in the painting for so long she feared that if this had been the curse, he’d been gone long before she stumbled into the room and that was absolutely not an option)

“Oh no,” Simon teased, stumbling on her reading in a secluded corner of the Common Room. “You’re not trying to turn me into a portrait are you?” He pretended to cower. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry!”

She snickered. “Knock it off, silly.” She tapped her pen against her notebook (quills were aesthetic and all, but she just couldn’t do it; the ink got everywhere and she’d nearly spilt the whole thing in her lap during Charms her first week; it had to go). “Just researching the theory.”

“How worried should I be?” he asked, dropping into the seat next to her.

“At this rate, not very.” She smacked the book in frustration. “This author’s an  _ asshole _ ; I mean honestly he’s just using big words like-- to prove he knows them or something. It’s like reading a muggle historian’s paper from the 1840s, it’s unintelligible, it’s  _ awful _ !” She rubbed her forehead. “And also, they’re not just gonna leave spells like that lying around where students could find them.”

She hit her notebook. “And I know it’s  _ possible _ , because it’s already happened, I just don’t know if it’s possible for a  _ wizard _ , or even how to  _ fix  _ it.”

“Wait wait, back up.” Simon held up his hands. “Already  _ happened _ ? When? Where? How?”

“1988 ish, here, a ‘Cursed Vault’?” She shook her head. “The book didn’t really explain much. It was honestly a bit too hand-wavey for my taste, but it happened. I’m sure you could ask some of the professors for more details; I think they were teaching around that time. Anyway, the whole debacle doesn’t help me because the book made it clear the Cursed Vaults aren’t wizardly magic; it’s something else entirely.”

“Fascinating,” Simon said, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

She smacked him on the arm. “Don’t go looking for the Cursed Vaults, you enormous twat!”

“Owwwwww,” he whined, clutching his arm and pretending to be wounded. “That wasn’t what I was planning!”

“It’s absolutely what you were planning and I’ll have you know the last person to try that very nearly got expelled. The first one  _ did _ , and then got trapped inside a portrait for some ten years or more, depending on who you ask.” She leaned in. “So once more,  _ don’t! Fuck! With! The Vaults! _ ” She poked his chest with each word. “Or I’ll tell Edward!”

He widened his eyes comically and held up his hand, crossing his heart. “I swear!”

She leaned back, resettling in her chair, turning her page and tapping her pen against her cheek. When she didn’t hear him leave, she glanced up to find him staring through her, lost in thought. He refocused when he saw her looking, turning a bit pink.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to stare.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” She tapped her pen on her book. “Thinking about anything special?”

“Just the whole portrait thing again,” he said. “I still can’t get over the thought. Just, how awful would that be?”

She thought back to the man in the painting, alone in that empty room. “Horrible,” she said.

God, she hoped she could figure this out.

  
  


“So you’re a muggleborn, aren’t you?” Mystery Man asked, lying flat on his back.

She glanced up from her Charms essay. “What gave you that idea?”

“You never say ‘Merlin’.”

She shrugged. “You got me there.” She leaned back. “Yes, I’m muggleborn.” She’d become much more at ease about admitting that since the school year started. Wizarding Britain was awfully chill about non magical blood for a society that had just gone to war over it some ten, twenty years back.

“What’s it like?”

She shrugged. “Like being a wizard but without magic? I don’t know, what do you mean?”

He rolled over onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows and plopping his chin in his hands. “I dunno. I just don’t remember my past, so I thought--” he shrugged.

“It might jog something if I talk?” She set her essay aside. “Well I can’t promise anything; don’t forget I grew up in America and we know you sure didn’t.”

“Boy howdy, how can y’all be sure, pardner?” he asked, putting on the thickest, most British cowboy accent she’d ever heard.

“ ‘Cause you talk the Queen’s English, buckaroo,” she imitated. “Now, what do you want to know?”

He asked all kinds of questions she’d never considered (“How do muggles do dishes?” “In the dishwasher?” which lead to a ten minute explanation of what a dishwasher is; this process repeated with personal laptops and cell phones).

“Tell me about your family,” he said.

She shrugged. “Not much to tell; just me and my parents.”

“Yeah, but, did you ever do anything special?”

“I mean there was this pizza place we’d always go to; it was right down the block from my old high school.” She frowned. “Funny, I can’t remember the name. Anyway, we’d go there a lot when I was younger too, for birthdays and the first and last days of school--really just any big event. There was this girl who worked there too; I was convinced she was a witch once I learned about my magic.”

“Was she?”

“Never got the chance to ask.” She shrugged. “There was a guy who lived down the street who I was absolutely convinced was an angry warlock because he always yelled at the kids when they played in his yard and lights would flash in his windows at night, but Mom always said he was just old and the lights were just his TV.”

“His what?”

She shook her head. “You know, if you weren’t so obviously wizard raised we could almost get a lock on what year you got stuck in there,” she said. “I can’t tell if you don’t know what an TV is because you’re a wizard or because you’re a poor confused fool from fuckin-- 1940-something.”

“Okay, then ask me wizard history.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’m sure I’ll be great with wizard history.”

“I’m sure I’m not,” she mumbled, but if it would jog his memory. . . “Okay, well I read in the library that there were these Cursed Vaults around.”

“Oh yeah, that was right before my first year,” he said without hesitation.

They both stopped dead.

“ _ What _ .”

“I-- Oh my god,” he said.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Eloquent as usual.”

“Oi, can it, that’s literally more information about you than we-- oh my  _ god _ , there have to be admission records, right? I mean, we have a pretty specific time frame for your first year-- not only do we have a general frame of reference for your age-- a time frame for when this happened-- so I have a frame of reference for my research which means we can--”

“Whoa, slow down, form a complete thought.”

She blushed. “Sorry, got carried away. But you see what this means, right?”

“That I’m remembering things?”

“Well yes, but also?”

He didn’t seem to follow. “That I’m. . . one step closer to escaping the painting?”

She laughed. “Well yes, but-- no, it  _ means _ that if I can find the Hogwarts admissions records I can put together a list of first years around the time of the whole Cursed Vault escapade and I mean-- I could find your  _ name _ .” She leaned back and laughed, delighted; it was their first real lead this whole time. “Just you wait Ginge,” she crowed, “we’ll have you home by the end of the year.”

“ ‘Ginge’ huh?”

“Yeah, like ginger.” She glanced back down at him. “You’re a ginger, in case you didn’t know.”

“I think I did,” he said cheerfully. “You can’t ever complain about ‘o savior of mine’ again, though.”

She rolled. “As if ‘ginge’ could ever match that in terms of inappropriateness.”

“You keep fitting it more and more.”

(she blushed and told him to knock it off but couldn’t come up with a solid argument)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> simon was supposed to be a one off but then i realized that i adore him so that didn't do the thing it was meant to. eddie too. he's great. they're great.
> 
> next up: a boggart. yeehaw.


	3. the boggart, and what came of it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> professor potter shows his true lupin attitude and simon and edward show off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by 'show off' i mean 'show off how they stole my heart and maybe the show'
> 
> make no mistake leah doesn't suddenly become obsolete bc i'm not THAT terrible an author but. i love them.

The Hogwarts admittance records were harder to find than she thought. In her old school, there were books and books of attendance records and report cards of students who’d gone there--dating all the way back to the 1890s on some of them--just lying in a basement room, accessible to anyone with a basement key and who knew the route (so mainly the theatre and band kids, along with some custodial staff).

Hogwarts had no such room. Not even the room that appeared when you needed it had a solution. She was running out of options, besides just sucking it up and asking the headmistress for a look, and there was absolutely no way she would do  _ that _ , because the students who started Hogwarts after the Cursed Vaults by and large went to play some role in the Second Wizarding War and there was no way that could fly under the radar. She’d heard rumors that Sixth Year was when Professor Binns did a lecture on the war, though, so she was hoping for an excuse to ask then. Ginge, of course, bemoaned her decision to wait, but she pointed out that this was sort of a strange situation and who was to say the adults would even believe him? (they never would at her old school)

“But you believe me, right?” he’d asked hesitantly.

“Of course,” she’d said; she hadn’t even had to think. “Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?”

There was a lot of buzz surrounding Defense Against the Dark Arts as the year went on. She was finding that Professor Potter was honestly one of the best teachers she’d ever had, like, in her life. Honestly, she never asked questions in class--if she was confused she turned to books and google to teach her--but in this class, she’d actually stayed a bit after to ask him to clarify a concept that confused her. She was amazed.

There was more buzz than usual as she stepped through the door to find all the desks moved to the sides of the room, a large trunk sitting at the front of the room. She walked hesitantly to the spot where her desk would usually be, one hand clutching her bag. What was going on?

“Good morning, class!” Professor Potter boomed from the front of the room. “We’ll be doing a bit of a hands on activity. Today, boggarts!”

She glanced at Simon, who seemed a bit unsettled. Edward shrugged when she looked at him, seeming unbothered. Simon must know his tells better than she did, though, because he took his hand and squeezed slightly.

“Don’t worry, you should all know the theory behind  _ Riddikulus _ , if you’ve done your homework,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll be at the front ready to step in, in the case that someone is unable to perform the spell.”

He had them form a line up to the trunk. “Now remember,” he called, “a boggart’s weakness is laughter, so no matter what, laugh at it!”

“Smiling actually causes a chemical reaction in the brain that tricks you into feeling happy,” Leah mumbled, trying to psych herself up. She was a bit afraid to find out what her worst fear really was in front of a roomful of peers.

“Maybe that’s actually what the boggart’s weak to,” Edward said. “It makes more sense than just laughter. The laughter tricks the brain into feeling happy, which means its power isn’t working.”

“Listen to you two getting all sciency,” Simon teased. “I’m gonna get up there and the boggart’s gonna jump at me and it’ll be you two spitting words like ‘chemical reaction’ at me.”

“Try ‘endorphins’,” she suggested. “Or ‘the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’.” She giggled. “Or maybe I’m shouting all of Newton’s laws at you. ‘For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction’!”

“The amount of matter in the universe always stays the same,” Edward said.

“No no no, that was like-- Einstein or something.”

“Are you nervous or something? Is that why you’re getting all sciency?” Simon asked.

She scoffed. “Of course not. Why, what’s it gonna do, turn into a report card with an 89% on it? Gonna turn into an ooky spooky representation of catastrophic failure and loss? Jokes on it, the only thing I’m scared of is myself and there’s only one ugly mug I’ve been dying to punch more than my own.”

“And whose is that?”

“Tronald Dump,” she said matter of factly. “Me, though, that bitch has it coming. Honestly it’d be therapeutic.” The line moved forward; only one person stood between her and the boggart. “ ‘S far as I’m concerned, I’m invincible.” She grinned.

“Miss Barnes, you’re next!” Professor Potter shouted, calling her forward. Laughing, she moved to face the boggart.

And froze dead, because lying on the ground was a painting.

A  _ frozen _ painting.

Sound fell away.

She crouched, heart in her throat, to get a closer look, because  _ it couldn’t be _ . He’d-- he’d been fine last time she’d talked to him, hadn’t he? He was frozen in place, arm outstretched like he’d been calling for help (calling, she thought, for her). She’d--  _ no _ , it was the boggart, she knew that, but she couldn’t-- was this what would happen if she failed? Was this--  _ NO, it was the boggart, get it together! _ But she couldn’t tear her eyes away (he probably had a family, she thought, a family she owed to get him back to them, and if she failed--). Her eyes stung, but she raised her wand.

_ It’s not real, there’s time yet--  _ “ _ Riddikulus! _ ”

With a sharp  _ crack _ the painting unfroze and she laughed in relief as her mystery man offered a grin like he was just pranking her. The portrait dissolved into an essence like sand and swarmed back into the trunk. Professor Potter forced it closed with a snap.

“Miss Barnes,” he said, breathing hard, “with me. Everyone else. . . class dismissed.”

She exchanged a glance with her two almost-friends. Simon had this almost suspicious look (maybe ‘concerned’ was a better word?) on his face.  _ We’ll talk later _ , he mouthed. At least, she thought that’s what he mouthed. She was terrible at lip reading.

She took her bag off the floor and slung it over her shoulder, walking up to her professor as the other students filed out the door, sneaking glances at them. “You wanted to talk to me?” she asked meekly.

“Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?” he asked.

She checked her watch. “I-- have Herbology in twenty minutes.”

“That’s alright, I can give you a note to class.”

She didn’t have much a choice then, did she? She trailed him up the stairs to his office, just hoping that she wouldn’t be eating her words of him being a great professor (and hoping that she would like the tea; she didn’t have a great track record).

He invited her to sit and began to move around the space. “I know there are ways to do this with magic,” he said, “but I’ve always been partial to the old fashioned way.” He put a kettle on heat and then settled himself across from her. “Miss Barnes, about your boggart--”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get it right away,” she said quickly, before he could finish. “It just-- took me off guard. I was expecting like, my crippling fear of crowds or failing my academics or disappointing my parents or something, and I just--”

“Please, hang on,” he said, lifting his hands in a calming gesture. She shrank back in her chair, mumbling an apology. “You’re not in trouble.”

“No?”

“No. I was just curious,” he paused, as though working through how to phrase his next sentence. “What did your boggart mean?”

“I--” she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t--”

It was her fear of failing people. It was her fear of disappointing people, and of letting down this man who had all but put his life into her hands.

But she couldn’t make herself say it, good professor or no.

“I understand it’s a personal question,” he said gently. “I just wondered, because--”

The kettle’s whistle drowned out whatever he was going to say. He got up and continued-- whatever he was doing to make tea; she didn’t know. She was a red blooded American capitalist; she drank hot chocolate and Starbucks and Red Bull and nothing else.

“The man in the portrait,” he continued. “Who is he?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. I guess the boggart pulled a face from my subconscious? You know, like how every face you see in a dream was a face you’ve seen somewhere before. Maybe I saw it in a book?” She was a Ravenclaw; Ravenclaws read tons of books.  _ Please buy it _ . “Maybe it was fear of being forgotten by history? Or how time seems to be repeating itself, freezing us into the same bad choices? I’m sure you’ve heard what’s been happening in America recently.”

“I have,” he said lightly. “I suppose you could be right.”

“Why do you ask?” she said. “Is there something significant about that man?”

She heard the cups clack against the counter a little too hard, and something cracked. She shot to her feet. “Professor are you alright?”

“Yes, sorry, just lost my grip.” He shook one hand. “It’s alright, don’t worry.”

“You’re sure?” she asked. “You didn’t burn yourself or anything?”

“No, I’m alright.” He checked his watch. “I suppose I’ve kept you long enough though, haven’t I? I’ll write you a note for Professor Longbottom.”

(she couldn’t have known this, but Harry Potter stared at the door long after she’d exited through it, before settling himself at his desk and pulling out a spare bit of parchment, scribbling a letter to a certain Diagon Alley joke shop)

(she was so relieved to escape that she didn’t realize he hadn’t ever answered her question)

  
  


She managed to duck Simon and Edward after class. She didn’t know how she’d explain it all. She  _ could _ try to claim that she was just afraid of the isolation (Simon had said it a thousand times hadn’t he?) but that wouldn’t explain why the portrait was a man instead of her. She didn’t think she could tell them the truth, either. Which meant, she was in between a boulder and a runaway train. Trouble was, she wasn’t sure which one meant certain death.

She couldn’t even ask for help. To ask Ginge would be to admit her worst fear involved him and she honestly didn’t want to face that. Luckily, nobody could force her.

She camped out in a hidden staircase by the Divination tower until  _ well _ past midnight. Even Simon had to give up eventually, right?

She’d underestimated him immensely.

“ _ Finally _ ,” he sighed directly into her ear, taking her by the arm the second she walked into the Common Room and steering her over to an isolated alcove. “You must be a master at avoiding Filch if you managed to stay out this long; the library closed  _ ages _ ago.”

“Simon it’s so late, what are you doing up?” she asked, trying to shake him off.

“You know full well; you’ve been avoiding me all day. I said we’d talk later, so now we’re talking.” He didn’t let go. “If you’d just come to bed earlier we might’ve been able to do it sooner.”

He tugged her around a bookcase, where Edward was sitting, slumped over dead asleep on a Potions textbook. Simon shook his shoulder. “Eddie wake up; she’s back.”

Edward sat up slowly, stretching. “Finally. Thought you’d never be back.”

She could feel her cheeks rub in. “Well I didn’t know you’d be waiting this long!”

“So you knew we were waiting!” Simon arrowed a finger at her. “ _ J’accuse! _ ”

She half groaned, nerves bubbling in her stomach. “Please can we get whatever this is done?”

“Right! Yes!” Simon whirled. “Eddie, the spell!”

Yawning, Edward lifted his wand. “ _ Muffliato _ .”

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Privacy.” Simon dropped onto the windowsill to lounge like he owned the joint. “It may be late but you of all people should know teenagers never sleep.”

“Even though  _ some _ of us would love to,” Edward mumbled. “Not that I blame you, Kayleigh. Just this dickhead for keeping me up waiting.” He ruffled Simon’s hair. “ _ I _ told him we should try to catch you before breakfast, and then maybe we’d all avoid falling asleep in class.”

“Well it’s not too late,” she said.

“Nope, we’re already here,” Simon chirped. “Pull up a chair and don’t  _ make _ me use the Jelly Legs Jinx on you.”

She settled on the edge of a chair, leg bouncing. She was honestly just hoping it would be over soon.

“Look--” Edward leaned forward. “I promise he’s just being dramatic. He’s got a flare for that shit, and he’s being an  _ asshole _ .” He shoved Simon on the shoulder, nearly pushing him off the windowsill. “It’s not bad and no one’s mad, I swear.”

“Then what’s so important?”

“Your boggart.” Edward folded his hands under his chin. “It was a portrait, and Simon tells me you’ve been researching the theory behind a spell like the one from my story. What’s going on?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Simon asked, leaning in.

“Both.” She sighed.

“You’re not being threatened, are you? You’re not in any danger?”

“No! Definitely not.”

Edward met her eyes. “You’re sure? No one can eavesdrop; if you are you can tell us.”

“I’m not, I swear.” She shook her head. “Where’d you even get that idea?”

He shrugged. “Nylora’s had a chip on her shoulder since September; it’s good to cover the bases.”

“Is that the Slytherin prefect?” she asked. He nodded. “What’s her deal, anyway?”

“Dunno.”

“Nobody knows,” Simon added. “Not even Devin--that’s the other Slytherin prefect, by the way.”

“But that aside,” Edward said. “We really do want to help you. I know Simon’s a bit of an ass, but we do honestly enjoy your company.”

Well fuck, she’d thought she was the loose cog in the sixth year class’s machine ever since she’d stepped through the doors, and here he’s going and saying that? Question was. . . did he mean it? Like, this was Edward, and very rarely did he say things he didn’t mean, but this secret. . . this was bigger than she was, and she was extremely reluctant to bring it beyond herself (she had a horrible mental image of the boys thinking she was crazy and telling a professor, and the professors sealing the painting away or worse, destroying it).

She sighed. “Really, it’s-- it’s not that I don’t  _ want _ to tell you, I just-- you’d think I’m nuts or--” She couldn’t think of a way to finish that thought.

“You found a person trapped in a portrait, didn’t you.” Simon groaned. “Just say it,  _ please _ , I’ve been hypothesizing ever since I heard the voice near Charms,  _ please _ tell Eddie I’m not crazy, because I feel like someone slipped me Belladonna in my pumpkin juice.”

Edward sighed. “Simon we’ve  _ talked  _ about this; Belladonna is poisonous and you’d be  _ dead _ .”

“I feel dead.” Simon leaned back dangerously. “Amerigirl, I’m counting on you.”

She gave up. “Fine. Yes, I found a person in a painting.”

“ _ Ha! _ ” He shot upright. “Fuck you Eddie; ten Galleons and my  _ sanity _ , if you please!”

Edward waved him off. “But how is that possible?” he asked, attention entirely on her. “My story-- it was just a story! I made it up like, three years ago at a campfire on a whim.”

“ ‘All good stories are rooted in truth’,” she mumbled, quoting herself. “I guess it doesn’t matter if the storyteller knows the truth or not.”

“So do you know how to fix it? Who’s in the portrait?” Simon asked eagerly.

“No, and we don’t know.” She answered his questions in turn.

“We?”

“Me and the guy in the painting.”

“And that was your boggart, wasn’t it? Your worst fear was. . .” Edward trailed off.

“Yeah,” she huffed, looking away. “I’m-- I’m terrified of failing him,” she admitted. “I mean, he’s almost entirely relying on me to fix things, and if I can’t do it. . .”

“Well now there are three detectives on the case,” Simon said cheerfully. “And I’ll have you know I’m quite the expert!”

“We’re Ravenclaws,” Edward added. “There’s no knowledge we can’t discover.”

“And I was almost a Hufflepuff, so you know I’m a hard worker!” Simon added.

She was finding it extremely hard not to get choked up. “You-- have no idea what a relief that is.”

“But here’s the question,” Edward said, and something in her chest went cold. “Do we go to the professors?”

“We can’t,” she said, almost before he’d gotten the word out. “They’d never believe us, and best case scenario they send us to the wizard psych ward and test for potions. Worst case--”

“They find the painting and destroy it,” Simon finished solemnly. “Like your story, right? Where the wizard came home from war and didn’t believe his family.”

“Yeah, exactly.” She nodded. “I can’t let that happen.”

“Okay.” Edward cracked his knuckles. “No teachers. But you saw the look on Professor Potter’s face when he saw the boggart, didn’t you?”

“No, why?”

“He looked like he’d seen a ghost. And not a ghost like Nearly Headless Nick,” he added. “Like it was something he’d never thought he’d see again.”

She frowned. “When I was talking to him after class, I asked if the man was important and he nearly dropped his teacup and kicked me out as fast as he could without being suspicious.”

“So he knows something.” Simon frowned. “I might keep an eye on him; maybe do a bit of light reading. Merlin knows I’m better at history than magical theory.”

“I can help you search for the counter curse,” Edward offered. “But we’ll need a better place to discuss than the Ravenclaw Common Room, if we want to keep this secret for long. Casting  _ muffliato _ may keep our secrets safe but that doesn’t mean it’ll keep people from realizing we’re saying things we don’t want to be overheard. That’s just asking for trouble.”

“No worries.” She smiled. “I happen to know all the best places to go when one doesn’t want to be found.”

She told them about her catalog of the hidden rooms and passages of Hogwarts and Simon whistled. “No wonder you’re never late to class! I wondered how you always managed to get from Divination to Potions ten minutes before the rest of us.”

“I’ll take you around, if you swear not to tell.”

“What fun is a hidden passage if everyone knows about it? You’ve got my silence for sure.”

“Then we’ll start tomorrow,” Edward said decisively. “And-- I guess whenever your mystery man is ready, we can meet him?”

“Yeah. He’s pretty friendly; I’m sure it’ll be okay.” She hoped it was okay. He’d probably be thrilled to have more companions, but all the same, it was hard not to be nervous.

“Then let’s all go the fuck to bed,” Edward said. “Because it’s too damn late and if I’m up another minute I’ll shove Simon down the stairs.”

“Murder threats,” Simon noted. “We’re reaching sleep drunk stages.” He hopped off the windowsill. “Best get a move on then, before he makes good on his promise. G’night Kayleigh.”

“G’night,” she said on instinct, then paused. “Well, I suppose if we’re gonna be partners in crime you should probably call me Leah.”

“Leah,” he said experimentally. “Nah, I’ll stick with Amerigirl if it’s all the same to you. Sounds like a superhero.”

She laughed. “I’m probably the furthest thing.”

Edward sighed. “I’d argue with you but I’m just too damn tired.” He undid the Muffling Charm got up, and shoved Simon towards the stairs. “Good night!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how do tuesday and saturday updates sound to y'all
> 
> i meant to aim for tuesday and friday but i'm an idiot
> 
> i've got all the chapters written already (i try not to post unless i've already finished, because otherwise it gets discontinued after a month or two) so i mean whichever y'all want, up to you


	4. wizard memes and wizard cars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leah's boys all meet, Hogwarts memes are explored, and the Ford Anglia is the real mvp despite everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW HEY ALMOST FORGOT IT WAS TUESDAY

She explained the situation to Ginge the next day, leaving out  _ how _ , specifically, Simon and Edward had figured it out (she made a mental note to beg them not to mention the boggart). He’d reacted much like she’d expected him too, which was honestly a relief. She’d explained that she kind of wanted to keep the room with the false wall under wraps just as a backup in case she was wrong or something happened, so they’d come up with a plan to relocate his portrait after hours when hopefully nobody would be out to see it.

There was a room she’d stumbled into on the sixth floor, behind a statue of a wizard who looked kind of like Teddy Roosevelt, except the wizard had elegant robes and probably wasn’t American. She’d stubbed her toe on the statue base and found a distinctly wand shaped hole between his feet (at least, she hoped it was wand shaped and not. . . well) that made a little section of the floor fall away. She thought it’d be big enough and out of the way enough for their purposes.

She’d somewhat underestimated how difficult it would be to avoid being caught. The prefects had switched up their patrol schedule on her, and she’d had to draw her path to avoid anywhere Professor Potter might be, and Ginge was so excited for the change of scenery that he kept forgetting to keep his voice down. That Slytherin prefect--Nylora, they’d said--nearly caught them in the Tapestry Corridor. Only a statue base, the portraits lining the walls, and an idea so batshit off the wall it just might work kept Leah from getting caught. That managed to scare Ginge into containing his excitement until they were safely into the secret room.

Simon was practically vibrating with excitement the whole day.

“Jeez, pal, you trying out to be a massage chair?” she teased.

“Don’t tease me, it’s not everyday this sort of thing happens!” His fingers tapped on the desk at a frantic pace. “Hogwarts hasn’t had anything big go on since Harry Potter graduated, and--”

“And that’s a good thing,” Edward interrupted. “Because when there aren’t world-ending calamities and Lord No-Nose attacking the campus, we can actually get semi-prepared for the rest of our lives.”

“Lord No-Nose?” She’d never heard that before.

“Yeah. There was this whole thing around Voldemort’s name for years; people were too scared to say it, and then during the war they put a taboo on his name so they could find the traitors. And I know he’s dead and all now but-- you know, he only died like twenty years ago and some people still don’t like hearing it. Like my nan,” Edward explained.

“And my mum,” Simon added.

“But saying You-Know-Who is too dignified and mysterious.”

“Yeah, we don’t respect the dead.”

“So instead we came up with all kinds of names for him.” Edward began listing them off. “Lord No-Nose, Snake Eyes, that son of a bitch.”

“Some of my personal favorites are ‘You-Know-Who-You-Can-Suck’, the Weasleys’ ‘U-No-Poo’, ‘He-Who-Must-Be-Shamed’, and ‘That Motherfucker’,” Simon said cheerfully. “I can’t say any of those in front of my mum though, so Lord No-Nose is the most common. If wizards had memes, Voldy’s name is one of the best.”

“I guess that’s a nickname too then? ‘Voldy’ like, what, like his girlfriend called him?”

“That’s an awful thought and I hate it,” Edward said. “And anyway, his girlfriend probably called him the Dark Lord.”

Simon snickered. “You think he got off on people calling him the Dark Lord? And that’s why he--”

“Simon shut the fuck up I never wanted that thought either.”

“Why are we suddenly talking about wizard Hitler’s sex habits?” she groaned, dropping her head onto her book.

“I thought that would be normal Ravenclaw conversation,” someone said in a lofty tone. Leah shot up to see Nylora standing over their table. Seeing her up close-- she forgot how words worked.

“Hi,” she said eloquently. She mentally shook herself. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m--”

“The American,” Nylora said. “I’ve heard of you.”

“Oh.”

“What do you want, Nylora?” Edward sighed.

“Well, someone was wandering around after hours last night, and I’ve noticed our dear American friend has a habit of popping up in strange places and wandering around.”

“How does that translate to her being out after hours?” Simon asked.

“I’m sure you’re getting into trouble during the day; I just haven’t been able to prove it.” Nylora crossed her arms. “Trouble in the day is easy to continue into the night.”

“I’m sorry; I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I hope you find them though!”

The Slytherin scoffed. “Believe me, I will.” She gave her another long look, and stalked off.

“Man,” Simon said, watching her go. “What is her  _ problem _ ?”

“It’s the Slytherin shtick,” Edward said, dropping his voice nearly to a whisper. “Stick up the ass, that is.”

“That’s rude,” Leah said. “She’s just doing her job.”

“Are you kidding? She’s got it out for you in particular. She’s picking on you for no reason.” Simon nudged her shoulder. “You don’t have to defend her.”

“Still,” she said, going back to her studies. “It’s rude to talk about people behind their backs.”

“Okay mum.”

They managed to sneak into the room after dinner, and she introduced them, already anticipating the chaos it would bring. She was pretty sure Simon and Ginge would be horrible influences on each other (and, as it turned out, she was damn right).

“So your waiting for Binn’s lecture before making your move?” Simon asked, after she’d filled them in on her name plan.

“Yeah. It would be least suspicious.”

“I could ask,” Edward offered. “McGonagall likes me, and she knows I like to research in depth. This wouldn’t be too abnormal, and it’s probably better to spread the research between us. It’d be harder to track that way.”

“Right,” Simon agreed. “But-- who should talk to Professor Potter?”

“Professor?” Ginge asked, leaning forward in the painting.

“Yeah, he--” Leah paused. “Wait, why’d you emphasize ‘professor’?”

He shrugged. “Just surprised that little twerp became a professor. Didn’t seem like him.”

Simon’s eyes bugged out. “You knew him?!”

Ginge stopped dead, and then lit up. “I mean, I guess I did! That’s  _ brilliant _ , I’m remembering more and more!”

“How’d you know him? Was he like, a friend or just a passing acquaintance?” Edward pressed.

Ginge’s face screwed up in concentration. “Merlin-- it’s just on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t think of it.”

They deflated a bit. “Well, don’t give up,” Leah said. “Your memory keeps coming back faster and faster; soon enough we’ll know what curse they used on you and we’ll be able to find the counter.”

“Well now we extra need to talk to Professor Potter,” Simon said. “There’s a connection; we might be able to sneak an answer out of him.”

Leah shifted uncomfortably. “It’s-- probably best if I do it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, I was the one who--”

“But we both saw it,” Simon interrupted, blessedly, keeping her from finishing with anything cryptic. “We were at the front of the line, you know. One of us goes up, claims to be concerned about our favorite professor, and weasels a few answers out of him along the way.”

“It has to be me,” she said. “Maybe he’ll be so concerned with trying to sneak answers out of me, I’ll be able to sneak them out of him.”

Ginge’s head darted back and forth between them. “I’m missing something,” he said.

She waved a distracted hand. “It’s not important.”

“Really? Because it seems like the lynchpin in this whole argument.” He crossed his arms.

She pulled a breath in, her eyes slipping closed for a second. “It’s-- a bit personal, I’m sorry.”

“And they know?”

“We weren’t supposed to know either,” Edward jumped in. “It just sort of happened.”

“Yes but  _ what _ \--”

“A boggart,” she said. “In class, we fought a boggart. So now they and Professor Potter know my worst fear. Please--” her throat caught-- “please don’t make me say more.”

He subsided immediately. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Boggarts are-- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pressed.”

“It’s okay,” she said, “you didn’t know.” Being out of the loop probably didn’t feel so nice, after being confined alone for years and years; decades, probably. She understood why he would (it didn’t feel any less like she’d escaped ripping open her skin, though).

Edward clapped his hands, pulling her back. “Right,” he said, “Binns is scheduled to do his lecture on the war next Thursday; I’d say the best time to catch Professor Potter might be next weekend. He’ll already be thinking about that time period, so it’ll probably be better than catching him on a nice sunny Saturday and plunging him back into the darkest time of his life.”

“But doesn’t he go home on the weekends?” She frowned. Everyone knew Professor Potter had kids he loved dearly, the youngest of which having not started Hogwarts yet.

“He lives in Hogsmeade,” Edward said. “And coincidentally it’s a Hogsmeade weekend. You go up to him after class Friday and ask if you can meet over the weekend, say something that’ll catch his fancy--we can hash that out later--and set up a time to meet over Butterbeer or what have you.”

“Oh boy,” she mumbled, because it kept sounding more complicated.

“Don’t worry, Eddie’s good at mystery,” Simon said. “You’ve heard his ghost stories.”

“Does that sound okay?”

She could think of at least eight things that could go wrong without even trying too hard, but she nodded. “Okay.”

Simon beamed, mussing her hair. “That’s our Amerigirl!”

  
  


She wandered down to see Hagrid for tea one afternoon. Simon had detention (turned out feeding a Bulgeye potion to Venomous Tentacula was not a good idea; the plant didn’t have eyes to bulge and just swelled to the size of the greenhouse instead) and Edward had barricaded himself in the library to buckle down on an essay he’d spaced off in his excitement over the painting research. She’d finished all her homework and thought it might be time to take Hagrid up on his offer.

They’d chatted for a while, and he’d offered a few rock cakes, his ‘specialty’. True to its name, the thing was so hard she nearly broke a tooth trying to take a bite out of it. She decided to treat it like a tootsie pop and wear it down gradually. It didn’t actually taste too bad.

Eventually, they ended up in his garden, weeding the pumpkin patch in preparation for Halloween.

“Are you sure these’ll last till Halloween?” she asked, surveying the patch. They were already huge, and they still had a while until the feast.

“Oh, they’re still growing yet,” Hagrid said cheerfully, yanking on a weed and pulling its network of roots out across the entire patch, showering dirt over them both.

“You mean they’re not full size?” She could hardly lift them  _ now _ . Thank god for Wingardium Leviosa.

“Not yet. Give it a while; they’ll be ready jus’ in time fer the feast.”

Hogwarts really went all out. “Do you carve all of them yourself?”

“I’d carve one or two,” he said. “Professor Flitwick usually did most of ‘em. Now he has the second years carve ‘em, to practice their Severin’ Charm.”

“You’re not worried about them destroying all the pumpkins?”

“We don’ need this many. Besides, it’s good fer them.”

She pulled harder on a stubborn weed, and it came out of the ground so smoothly she fell back on her rear. Not exactly elegant. Laughing breathlessly, she clambered to her feet, brushing the clods of dirt off her robes, and paused at a brief blink of light from the Forbidden Forest. She squinted, catching a flash of light blue between the trees and the rumble of an engine.

“Hagrid, what’s that?” she called, not looking away.

“Hm? Oh, the car.”

“The  _ car _ ?” she said, bewildered.

“Surely ye’ve heard the story?” He straightened up. “Second year Harry Potter missed the train, so him and his best mate Ron Weasley flew a car teh school.”

“They flew a  _ car _ ?”

“An’ got in heaps of trouble too, so don’t go gettin’ any ideas!” He looked at her sternly.

“I’m not,” she said. Just, she was thinking-- a while back she'd been complaining to Ginge about fries.

“It’s not my fault the Bobbing Humdinger smells like McDonalds,” she’d said. “And now I’m  _ craving _ .” She dragged the word out into a groan.

“So ask the house elves to make you some,” Ginge said.

“They’ll make ‘em like the Brits do though, and no offense but your fries  _ fuckin suck _ .” She added a tone to the words like a frat boy talking football so hopefully he wouldn't take it personally.

“So go find some.”

“I  _ would _ , but the nearest McDonalds is thirty miles away and I don’t have a car.”

“Well there’s one that gained sentience and went wild in the Forbidden Forest, so maybe if you ask nicely it’ll take you.”

She’d paused, sat upright very slowly, and rubbed her temples. “A  _ car _ .”

“Yeah.”

“That gained  _ sentience _ .”

“Mhm.”

“And is still on school grounds somewhere.”

“In the forest.”

“How the bloody fuck do you explain that?”

“Magic does that to technology, I guess.” He shrugged, and frowned. “ ‘S funny; feels like there’s something else with that car. Just can’t put my finger.”

She’d noticed before that offering her own experiences tended to prompt memories from him, so she tapped her pen against her book. “Back before we moved, I was gonna get my dad’s car when I turned sixteen. He was due for an upgrade anyway, and it would make coordinating rides easier. But then, it was just cheaper not to. We um--” she fiddled with a piece of hair-- “we sold the car rather than ship it, and he just bought a new one when we got here.” She shook her head. “Not that it matters; no commute when you live in school and anyway I never got my license.” That had been a rather anticlimactic birthday; so much for all her big ‘Sweet Sixteen’ idea. She’d camped in her bedroom in their new house and-- well.

“Anyway,” she said, “making friends with a car probably isn’t the strangest thing I’ve done, and damn if I don’t want those fries. Might have to go say hi.”

Standing in the pumpkin patch, she watched the car trundle away.

“How does it fly?” she asked. “It’s a car. Wizards don’t make cars, do they?”

“Nah. This car’s special. See, Arthur Weasley, nice guy-- he liked to tinker with Muggle stuff. Was his car once. Suppose Ron did something driving it here and-- well, the car got a mind of its own.” Hagrid went back to weeding the patch. “Yeh migh’ ask Harry more about it next time yeh see him.”

She gave the forest one last searching look. “I might,” she said.

(“An’ don’ get any bright ideas about enchanting Muggle stuff yerself! It’s still illegal!”  _ Pickles,  _ she thought,  _ there go my weekend plans _ )

  
  


Somehow, Professor Binns managed to make one of the most climactic events of modern English wizarding history sound dry. The sixth years had been buzzing with excitement for the whole month, and yet looking around just ten minutes into the lecture, half the class was already asleep.  _ Maybe they’d have stayed awake if he used a powerpoint? _ she mused, but also, Professor Binns was a ghost, and you couldn’t teach an old ghost new tricks (and if her Biology teacher couldn’t do it, he  _ definitely _ couldn’t).

The only thing keeping her awake was keeping Simon awake. Every time his head drooped she’d have to poke him in the side, which woke her back up too. Edward, it seemed, had no problems staying awake, but she also couldn’t say for sure that he hadn’t consumed the wizard equivalent of three Monsters and a Red Bull before class.

Professor Potter’s lecture was a completely different setting. They’d walked into class that morning to an atmosphere fraught with excited tension, the room quieter than the library had ever been. Not a single person was absent. She hadn’t seen perfect attendance since maybe elementary school.

And it was overwhelming. Hearing him talking about the war was so different than Binns, because where Binns hit all the major academic points, Professor Potter was more specific. He’d mention the people he fought with, their bravery. He talked about Professor Longbottom, how he’d pulled the sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting hat and destroyed Voldemort’s final horcrux, finally leaving him vulnerable (she noticed he called him Voldemort unflinchingly).

People asked questions, of course. They asked him about being on the run, about the late headmaster and is it true what they said about Snape? Someone quietly asked him how he’d been able to adjust; did wizards have therapy? “They didn’t,” he said, “but after the war a lot of things changed. My best mate Ron Weasley was behind most of that.”

The whole Potterwatch thing he talked about was pretty interesting. Some part of her wished there were recordings available online to listen through, but wizards didn’t use the internet, and anyway it was a live broadcast so no recordings existed. She’d heard that ‘River’, or Lee Jordan, had done the Quidditch commentary during his time at Hogwarts; she still heard some particularly good lines of his thrown around like a vine reference (it had been so confusing the first time she’d heard someone shout “ _ TAKE THAT YOU DIRTY CHEATING-- _ ” across the Great Hall and get cut off by an equally enthusiastic “ _ JORDAN I’M WARNING YOU! _ ” As it turned out, ‘Jordan I’m warning you’ was its own wizard meme).

Too soon, the class ended. Professor Potter hopped off the desk (he was the hip sort of professor that never sat in the chair). “We’ll be back to regular class on Monday,” he said. “Don’t forget, you have an essay due on the proper defense against Red Caps. Sixteen inches, and I expect your handwriting to be a reasonable size!” He raised an eyebrow, looking to Simon in particular who just grinned and saluted.

As she put her things away, she met Edward’s eyes. He nodded. She half smiled, nerves tight in her chest. Simon flashed a thumbs up as he slung his bag over his shoulder. Clutching her own bag to her chest, she made her way to the front. “Um, Professor Potter?”

“Ah, Miss Barnes!” The professor looked up from where he was cleaning up his desk. “Just the student I wanted to see.”

“You-- what?”

“Hagrid mentioned that you were curious about the car.” He snapped the clasps on his briefcase. “And as it so happens, Ron’s going to be flooing in this weekend for a visit. I was wondering if you’d like to meet him and maybe ask a few questions.”

She was extremely sure this couldn’t be a coincidence. There weren’t coincidences when it came to magic. Even though she already knew what her answer had to be, she shifted in place, biting her lip.

“I know it’s a Hogsmeade weekend,” Professor Potter said hastily. “I don’t want to pull you away from your other plans.”

“No, that’s-- I don’t have other plans.” She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “I’d love to meet with you two.”

His face split with a grin. “Great. I can owl you later tonight with a time?” She nodded. “I’ll see you then.”

She did her best to leave normally, and couldn’t help rolling her eyes when she found Simon and Edward lingering outside the door conspicuously. “Waiting for something?” she teased.

Simon elbowed her lightly, tugging her away from the door. “I’m warning you,” he said, and she snickered. It still didn’t sound as good as ‘I won’t hesitate, bitch’, but hey. Wizard meme. “What’s the sitch, witch?”

She grinned, dropping into a hacker voice. “I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how is the ford anglia an mvp despite appearing for perhaps two seconds? why it's simple. i (and harry) latched onto that shit as an excuse to get the characters talking. thanks, ford anglia.


	5. professor potter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> leah experiences the true horror that is seeing your professor outside of school, and other hogsmeade shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i forgot yesterday was a friday bc i'm a big dumb idiot
> 
> thx anon for leaving comments you own my whole heart

She actually hadn’t been to Hogsmeade yet. Simon squawked indignantly at her when she admitted that and absolutely went  _ off _ , to their amusement.

“If you didn’t have a very important meeting I’d be dragging you straight to the Three Broomsticks,” he grumbled, arms crossed, glaring at her across the carriage as it rumbled its way down to the village. “You better not spend all day in there!”

Edward elbowed him in the side. “You spend as much time as you need to get  _ answers _ ,” he said. “Forget Simon.”

“Who’s Simon?” she asked.

“Exactly, well done.”

Professor Potter had owled her to meet with him at 11, and they’d gotten a bit of a late start that morning, having stayed up reviewing what might be useful to know and how to avoid questions like a proper politician. She said a hasty goodbye as the carriage stopped and ran for it.

He seemed to have understood that she wasn’t familiar with the layout of Hogsmeade, since his invitation also had directions to his house (she assumed it was his house; the streets she’d stumbled onto certainly weren’t lined with shops). She skidded to a halt outside the gate, pausing to catch her breath. She almost reached for her phone to check the time, but she didn’t have it. Old habits truly died hard.

Straightening her robes, she made her way up the walk.

The professor opened the door on her first knock, smiling. “You made it! Just in time, too. Come on in.”

She left her shoes on the mat and trailed behind him, marvelling. This-- this was  _ weird _ . It was like seeing your teacher at a grocery store except times two. Professor Potter wasn’t exactly the epitome of professional dress on any day, but seeing him dressed so casual--  _ lord _ it was unsettling and wrong. What do you  _ mean _ teachers exist outside of class?

“This is my wife, Ginny,” Professor Potter introduced. The tall ginger woman at the stove smiled at her.

“Pleasure,” she said.

“Nice to meet you,” Leah stammered (WOW).

“Ron’s running late,” the woman said, rolling her eyes with a bit of a fond smile. “How very like my brother. You’re free to make yourself at home while we wait.”

He’d married his best friend’s sister? How awkward must that have been? Not that she blamed him for falling for her, though; she’d met the woman twelve seconds ago and already just. Wow.

“Don’t be too hard on him; he must’ve just gotten caught up at the shop.” Professor Potter continued through another door into what appeared to be a living room (was that a ‘sitting room’ in British? she didn’t know). “It is a Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Mrs. Potter said.

Leah trailed behind him like a lost puppy, shoving her hands in her pockets and shifting awkwardly in place. Professor Potter settled himself into an armchair by the fireplace, lighting it with a flick of his wand (she heard the muttered incantation, though, and hid a smile. Oh, Brits; they were supposed to go nonverbal in their sixth year but not even the professors could do it).

“Go ahead and sit anywhere,” he invited. She cast about and finally settled on a rocking chair across from him. She couldn’t help sitting close to the edge, like she was ready to run. In a way, she kind of was.

A knock at the door nearly sent her six inches in the air. As it was, she narrowly managed to conceal a flinch (that would be so embarrassing). “I’ll get it!” Mrs. Potter called. The door opened and Leah heard her cluck her tongue. “You’re late, Ronald.”

“Nice to see you too,” a man said. Boots hit the floor in the entryway, and second later he appeared in the doorway to the living room, cheeks flushed. “You must be Kayleigh,” he said, striding forward to take her hand. “Ron Weasley; charmed.” She tried to remember her interview handshake techniques but wasn’t sure how successful she’d been. His smile widened, though, so it must not have been  _ too _ bad?

“Where’ve you been?” Professor Potter said.

“Got held up at the shop.” He slipped his brightly colored suit jacket off his shoulders. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d seen the style before. . . oh right, that joke shop in Diagon Alley. “We had a new shipment of smoke bombs to coordinate and George wouldn’t let me duck out half done.”

“You didn’t tell him why you had to leave?” She caught Professor Potter’s eyes dart briefly to her. Interesting.

“Course not,” Ron said. “No use getting his hopes up yet.”

She shifted uneasily in her seat, dragging his attention back like he’d forgotten she was there. He turned very red and began to stammar something about the shop. She pretended to understand whatever excuse he was giving. He seemed to relax.

“So I heard you’re curious about the car,” he said.

She nodded. “I just saw it when I was visiting Hagrid one day and I got curious,” she said. “You know, cause with the technology ban here I was a bit surprised to see a car.”

“Do they not have a tech ban at Ilvermorny?” Ron asked curiously.

She fought a sigh because  _ everyone _ thought she’d gone to Ilvermorny. “I don’t know; I didn’t go to Ilvermorny. You know there’s too many wizards in North America to fit in that one tiny school, right? Unless they hold classes in football stadiums.”

He blinked. “Huh. Never thought of it.”

“But no, there wasn’t a tech ban at my old school. I mean, it wasn’t allowed in the classrooms where we did magic, but otherwise. . .”

“Must be a culture shock for you,” Professor Potter said.

“You wizards have knowledge gaps in the strangest places,” she said. “I mean, you’ve got cars but a laundry machine might as well be a UFO.”

Ron’s eyes lit up. “Those are the flying teacup things, aren’t they? UFOs?”

She couldn’t not gape at him. She still had No-Maj in her, and this  _ grown ass man _ didn’t know a UFO. “You don’t--  _ please _ tell me you’ve heard of Area 51.”

He seemed slightly embarrassed, but mostly fascinated. “I haven’t,” he admitted.

“They did a whole raid on it like a month ago, and you didn’t-- you  _ have  _ used the internet, haven’t you?”

“Okay,” Professor Potter broke in. “We’ll be here all night.”

Ron sighed. “Fine, but we’ll come back to that,” he said. “I’m curious about this ‘internet’.”

“You sound like Dad,” Mrs. Potter said, coming in with a tray of cups. “I didn’t know how you took your tea dear, so I made a hot chocolate. I hope that’s alright.”

“Hot chocolate’s my favorite,” she managed, accepting the drink and taking a sip.

Ron sipped his own drink. “So, the car,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

They ended up slipping away from the car and suddenly she was being regaled with silly stories from the three’s years at Hogwarts. Ron told a story about how he’d accidentally cursed himself with his broken wand in his second year and spat up slugs for hours. They asked her if she’d had any of Hagrid’s rock cakes, and laughed in delight when she said she hadn’t found them that bad if you didn’t try to bite them. “I’ll have to stop by and try some,” Ron said.

They were telling a story about their terrible second year Defense Against the Dart Arts teacher when another knock at the door sent Mrs. Potter hurrying to answer. She didn’t hear who it was, though, because Professor Potter mentioned all the portraits of their terrible professor that had hung on the walls and she suddenly felt like she was in the hot seat, even though neither of them were looking to her.

“All they’d do was just smile and nod along to his lectures,” Ron laughed. “Like the ultimate yes men.”

“They couldn’t do much else,” Professor Potter said. “They’re just portraits.”

There was a charged silence, and then Ron sighed, shaking his head. “Aw hell,” he said, “I was never good at segues.” He turned to her and she fought the urge to recoil into the chair. “Harry told me about the boggart.”

A thousand options for action ran through her head ( _ apologize for your reaction / try to explain away the portrait / give an excuse for the fear _ ) but sometimes the best course of action was just to let them fill the silence. At least she wouldn’t self incriminate.

“It’s of interest to me because--” Ron exchanged a look with Professor Potter-- “well, your reaction was more severe than usual. And the boggart was unusual as well.”

“I’m sure you’re used to it being spiders or something,” she said softly.

“Something like that, yeah.” He leaned in, his face suddenly serious. “Can you tell me about what it was?”

“I thought you said Professor Potter told you,” she said.

“I’d like to hear your description, if that’s alright.”

She rubbed one elbow. “Well, I don’t know. It was just this portrait of some guy, like every other portrait in the castle, except he didn’t move. He just looked. . . terrified. You know, like something awful had happened and he’d been petrified in that moment.”

“This man,” Ron said, “what did he look like?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, ginger? Wearing Muggle clothes. Maybe tall? It was hard to tell.” She studied their faces. “Is he important?”

The men exchanged a glance, but neither said anything.

“I’ve seen you talking with the portraits around Hogwarts,” Professor Potter said carefully. “And you understand that portraits aren’t real people, right?”

“Yes of course,” she said, looking between them. “Why?” She folded her arms. “This has something to do with that man, doesn’t it. What’s so special about him?”

They looked at each other again. “Because-- he’s dead,” Professor Potter said. “Long dead. And there’s no way that could have been in your subconscious.”

“Maybe I saw it in a book?” she offered. “Or someone else in the room had and the boggart just got confused. I mean, you were standing up there with me; maybe it just tried to become both of our worst fears at the same time and it went wrong.”

Professor Potter didn’t say anything for a moment. “I suppose that’s possible,” he said.

She shifted in the chair. “Was he dangerous?” she asked. “Is that why everyone’s so worried?”

“Dangerous?” Ron echoed, and shook his head with a soft smile. “Sure. But he wouldn’t ever hurt anyone. No, he was a good guy.”

She wished they’d just slip and say his name already; she’d ask but she was afraid of displaying too much interest. There were ways she could probably corral them into saying it, but she already felt hunted, and they were no doubt gearing up to ask--

“What did your boggart mean?”

\--the one thing she refused to answer. She was on her feet before she could even think. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice shaking. “I-- I can’t answer that one.” She picked up her jacket from the chair and shoved her arms through the sleeves. “This has been lovely,” she said, “but I promised my friends I’d meet them in the Three Broomsticks before the day is out.”

Both men were on their feet with her, and she half registered that she didn’t know when that had happened. She exchanged pleasantries, feeling as though she was underwater, saying goodbye to Mrs. Potter and drifting through the front gate.

She was running before she even rounded the first corner.

  
  


“The Shrieking Shack.”

A voice cut through the cotton in her head. She lifted her head to see Nylora leaning against the fence a few yards away.

“Should’ve known I’d find you here,” the prefect continued.

“Hi,” she said in response, dropping her head back into her hands.

“You’re not causing trouble, are you?” She heard the other take a few steps closer, gravel crunching under her feet.

“No, sorry.” She honestly wasn’t sure what she was saying.

“Shame,” Nylora said. “I suppose I’ll have to catch you some other time.”

Leah didn’t bother moving, rubbing circles into her forehead and trying to keep count of her breathing. For a few moments, nothing moved. She almost thought Nylora had left, but when she glanced back up, the Slytherin was still standing there, surveying her.

“Can I ask you something?” Leah said.

Nylora blinked, like she hadn’t been paying attention. “You just did,” she mumbled.

“Another something.”

Nylora looked at her. “Fine.”

“What did I do?”

She stopped. “What?”

“What did I do?” Leah repeated. “Because-- I mean I have to have done  _ something _ to you, and I just-- I want to apologize for whatever it was.”

Nylora didn’t say anything, just looked at her stone faced. Leah dropped her head back into her hands, recognizing when she’d been beat.

She heard an intake of breath, like she was going to speak, and shot her head up, but whatever Nylora was going to say was interrupted by a shout of familiar laughter down the path. The Slytherin stiffened. “I’ll see you around,” she said, and then vanished back down the path.

Her two friends rounded the bend, laughing with a few bags on their arms. “Hey, there she is!” Simon crowed.

“We saw Nylora making for here like no tomorrow and thought, ah, there’s only one person she could be chasing,” Edward said. “If I didn’t know any better I’d almost say she-- well, nevermind.”

“So what’d you get, Amerigirl?” Simon dropped onto a tree stump next to her.

“Speaking of get, we got you a butterbeer.” Edward handed her a bottle. She was grateful to find it had a screw on cap.

“Non alcoholic, yes?” she confirmed. They nodded. She took a drink. “Okay, so info: Professor Potter’s wife is  _ wow _ .”

“Oh my god, right?!” Simon enthused. “She taught flying lessons one year way back; she played for the Harpies you know.”

“Honestly, nobody knows how Professor Potter landed her. She’s incredible,” Edward added.

She shook her head. “And nobody thought to tell me?”

“It’s just common knowledge. We didn’t think to.” Simon shrugged. “Anything else?”

“Both Ron and Professor Potter know Ginge,” she said. “And when I asked about him Ron got this look on his face, you know like when you talk to someone about a dead relative.”

“Well he is ginger and freckled, he might very well be a dead relative,” Edward noted. “I’ll have to check the records.”

“Do they have those?”

“They might’ve blocked them, since the Weasleys were some of the biggest players in the Second Wizarding War. They’re not exactly an obscure name; they might’ve hidden the records from the public just for privacy reasons.” Edward frowned, uncapping his pen and scribbling a cryptic note on his hand. “I’ll look into it.”

“He mentioned a George, probably a business partner-- said something about not wanting to get his hopes up,” she said. “Could be worth bringing up to Ginge and seeing if that jogs anything.”

“He has to be--” Simon stopped mid sentence to cast  _ muffliato _ . “He has to be a Weasley; there’s no way he’s not. That thing with the car, and he’s ginger, and Ron’s reaction-- if he’s not, I’ll eat my hat.”

“No transfiguring it into a brownie this time,” Edward said.

“Even if he is, we still only have half a name,” she said. “If we can find his first name we could probably finish everything off.”

“We could have him out by Halloween,” Simon said.

“Let’s say end of term, to be safe.”

“Assuming the records aren’t sealed, and assuming he even knows what curse trapped him, and assuming we can figure out the countercurse,” Edward mumbled, scribbling another note onto his hand.

“Okay Negative Numbskulls, but there’s three of us,” Simon said. “I’m betting by Christmas we can have all of this finished, easy as pie!”

“Barring any Potter-level schoolwide catastrophes, you mean,” Edward said.

She groaned. “Now you’ve jinxed us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WISH I HAD FOUND MORE SPACE FOR GINNY BUT THE STORY IS SO SHORT AND I WASN'T ABLE TO MANAGE MUCH ORGANICALLY BUT SHE'S A BAMF AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT


	6. nylora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> devil's snare, flirting, and a couple joke shop lads
> 
> or
> 
> can you tell i played hphm?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I FORGOT IT WAS TUESDAY

It wasn’t school wide, but Leah considered it a catastrophe.

Either she’d managed to get even further onto Nylora’s bad side by trying to apologize, or she was just easily bullied, because a group of students (three Slytherins and a Gryffindor) had caught her in the halls and before she’d even had time to gasp they’d bundled her into a broom closet and slammed the door.

She lit her wand, chest heaving, taking the painting out of her bag. With Nylora claiming to be watching her, she’d thought it would probably be a good idea to keep moving Ginge’s portrait. She wasn’t sure if she regretted that now or not.

“What happened?” He squinted in the light from her wand. “Did we make it?”

“No,” she huffed. “I--”

A thump on the door made her jump back. Muffled snickers filtered through the wood.

“We’ve been shoved into a closet,” she said, quieter.

“Oh,” he said. “Cool.”

Taking a few cautious steps forward, she set her wand against the door. “ _ Alohomora. _ ”

Nothing even clicked. So either the door was locked with a kind of magic the charm didn’t work on, or it didn’t even lock and they were holding the door shut. Either way, that wasn’t going to work.

“Damnit.”

“Language.”

“Is now really the time?” She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand, freezing when she felt the ghost of a touch on her ankle. “Oh my god.”

“Oh my god what?”

She didn’t want to, but she looked down.

Vines wound around both ankles, tightening with every moment.

“Oh my god what?!”

“Devil’s Snare,” she whispered.

The vines yanked her off her feet.

The impact knocked the painting from her arms. Her concentration wavered and her wand went dark. “ _ Shit! _ ” She lit it again, trying to peel the plant off her foot but it just tightened its grip like an angry snake. “You okay?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

“Watch me!” she snapped breathlessly, snatching her hand back as the vine tried to wind around it too. “How do you fight Devil’s Snare?!”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s not an American plant of course I don’t know!” Heart pounding in her throat, she jabbed it with her wand and it seemed to recoil.

“It hates sunlight!”  
“Well I’m shining my light at it!” A vine coiled around her chest before she could push it away.

“So try heat!”

“ _ In _ \--”

A vine seized her wrist and the wand fell from her hand. The light went out.

Sound went dead as she scrabbled on the floor, trying to bat the plant away and find her wand. She could cast nonverbal but she couldn’t do wandless, she had to-- she  _ had  _ to-- it was winding around her arms but she had to-- she wrenched her arm, pulling, leaning--

_ She had her wand _ .

But she couldn’t fight the Devil’s Snare, not like this, with the vines shoving her wand into her face-- if she cast  _ Incendio _ she’d burn herself more than the plant, she couldn’t--

Her eyes landed on the painting.

They’d never tested it before. They’d discussed it in passing once or twice, whether he could visit other paintings. He said he thought he might be able to, but his painting wasn’t flush against the wall. They’d decided that was probably the limiting factor, but never confirmed it (it hadn’t seemed important; that was after the incident with Professor Potter and they were scared if he was spotted wandering the castle it would draw attention).

She wished they had, now. She wrestled her wand around to point at his painting, met his eyes. “Get help,” she said, and hoped he understood. He got a determined look on his face and nodded once. She tightened her grip, aimed carefully, and--

The painting blew off the ground with a sound like a gunshot, slapping against the wall. It landed facedown, out of reach. She couldn’t tell if the plan had worked. The portrait lay facedown; she couldn’t hear shouting, so she just hoped (prayed) it had worked, and that he would find someone and that they--

She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t. But the anxiety strangled her chest stronger than the plant did and she couldn’t help feeling hopeless because it probably hadn’t even worked and he was still trapped in the painting, facedown, and she was waiting on a phantom that wouldn’t show and she couldn’t even--

“ **_Reducto!_ ** ”

The door exploded inward, and she went numb because  _ holy shit, Nylora? _

Hands pulled her away from the Devil’s Snare (she hadn’t even noticed it get severed). Green eyes met hers, a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You okay?” Nylora asked. She nodded. The prefect breathed out, helping Leah to her feet. Leah picked up the painting again, thanking her lucky stars to find it undamaged. They stepped into the hallway.

“Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?” Nylora asked, voice uncharacteristically soft.

“No,” she said. “I-I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure? Devil’s Snare doesn’t play nice.”

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

Leah didn’t want to lie. “Just some students messing around,” she said evasively.

“Mhmm,” Nylora hummed skeptically. “Did you see who it was?”

“No.”

Ginge snorted derisively from a painting on the wall (she jumped). “Don’t defend them,” he said.

Leah blushed. “I’m not,” she said, even though she knew she was. “I didn’t see them.”

Nylora looked at her, and then, to her immense relief, let it go. “Let me walk you up to your Common Room,” she said.

Leah hugged the painting to her chest on instinct, the corners cutting into her stomach. “Okay,” she said. “But-- first.” She turned to Ginge on the wall. “Back in, or wander?”

“In,” he said, with no hesitation. “Like I’d leave you alone now.”

She set the painting against the wall and he reappeared in the frame.

“Okay,” she said again. She was ready for this to be over. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ready to crash.”

“Suppose I should get you back quickly,” Nylora said, and a bit of teasing slipped into her tone ( _ Nylora _ ?  _ Teasing _ ?). “This way, my lady.”

  
  


Nylora became more of a constant presence after that, in the library or between class. Leah still hadn’t told Simon or Edward about the whole. . . thing. And she didn’t plan to. She didn’t plan to tell anyone who didn’t know. It was just. . . easier.

She hadn’t told Nylora the full story with the painting; just said that she’d found the painting in the wrong place and was on her way to find where it was meant to go. She didn’t think for a second that Nylora believed it, but it was enough for her to let it drop (even if she was no doubt pursuing answers in a more Slytherin-esque fashion).

It was honestly comforting. Even though she hadn’t ever gotten an answer for what she’d done to tick Nylora off in the first place, she could settle into the routine easily. She offered a very different brand of (semi) friendship than Simon or Edward or Ginge did; a bit colder, a bit more distant, but no less steady.

It wasn’t until their next Hogsmeade weekend (spent as a duo; Simon and Edward claimed to have something they had to do) that she broached the topic again.

Sitting in the booth, hands wrapped around a butterbeer, she asked the question. “You-- never answered last time I asked. Did I-- was there something I did that made you--”

“No,” Nylora said, not even waiting for her to finish. She gripped her own butterbeer, staring out the window next to them. “You didn’t-- it wasn’t your fault.”

Leah nodded absently. “So--um, if you don’t mind my asking--why?” She left the question open.

Nylora sighed, picking up her mug like she was going to take a drink, but then setting it back down without touching it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just-- I don’t know.” She tapped her fingers on her mug. “I guess I just--” she huffed. “I saw you with your friends and I guess I just felt jealous. Because you were new, and already you looked like you’d been at Hogwarts for years and years. And I just-- I don’t know. I never really got close to the people in my house, and even with the whole new inter-house unity stuff, other houses don’t really trust Slytherins, and certainly not  _ me _ , with my lineage.” She scoffed, and then lowered her head. “I never really apologized outright, did I?” she said. “I’m sorry for how I treated you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I promise you it wasn’t even the worst I’ve had.”

Nylora’s head shot up, eyes narrowed. “You’ve had worse?”

Leah shifted. She’d sort of meant it as a joke. “I mean-- yeah. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“What happened?”

She took a sip of butterbeer and savored the taste. “This girl in my class-- she said something just  _ awful _ , so-- I called her out on it, and she called me an sjw snowflake and I called her a Nazi bootlicker and-- she vowed to make my life a living hell.” She shrugged. “And then things happened, and the adults finally caught on, and then we moved.”

Nylora’s face was inscrutable, but Leah was learning that didn’t mean she was pissed at her (it had been a bit unsettling though). “How long did it take?”

She shrugged. “Dunno, year and a half? It wasn’t  _ that _ bad, they just badmouthed me to anyone who would listen and I got tripped in the hallways a couple times.” (she avoided mentioning how many nervous habits she’d developed or the messages scrawled under desks and keyed into bathroom stalls).

“If it was so bad you moved--” Nylora shook her head. “I can’t imagine.”

“We mostly moved for my dad’s job. My school troubles just sealed the deal, you know? Made it a little easier.” She traced a finger along the condensation on her cup, and then finished it off.

Nylora tilted her head, and changed the subject. “Have you been to the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes yet?”

She turned the name over in her head. “Sounds sort of familiar.” She definitely knew ‘Weasley’ but the rest of it. . .

“It’s a joke shop; I think you’d like it.”

“Cause I’m a troublemaker?” she teased. “Gonna introduce me to the wizard chaos products?”

“Because you’re smart and you have good taste,” Nylora said simply, and then proceeded to slam back the rest of her butterbeer, wiping her mouth with a hand. “Come on.”

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes turned out to be a joke shop, colorful like the one she’d stumbled into in Diagon Alley. Actually, stepping inside it looked nearly the same. Must be a wizarding franchise.

“Is this more like a Hot Topic or something a bit more local?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea what a ‘hot topic’ is, but there’s only two of these,” Nylora said. “One in Hogsmeade and one in Diagon Alley. They ship worldwide, though. Come look at this.”

Nylora tugged her around the shop (which was much larger inside than the outside had looked; she still wasn’t used to such blatant magic). As it turned out, Nylora was a really good storyteller. She had a little story for nearly every product on the shelf.

“I’m not condoning this,” she said, tapping one of their Boxing Telescopes “but last year I had to confiscate a few of these off a second year who was trying to give his entire Astronomy class matching black eyes. Where they got the money for them, I’ve no idea. This one--” she picked up a quill advertised to write in invisible ink-- “I caught a Ravenclaw using on a blackboard in an empty classroom. He was going to bring someone in and try to trick them, no doubt; he’d written it in a cypher. Unluckily for  _ him _ , I saw him do it, and  _ I _ can recognize a Caesarean cypher easy.”

“You can?” Leah’d watched through any number of Gravity Falls clue finding videos and she still couldn’t do that. “That’s amazing! What’d it say?”

“It was a dick joke.”

She giggled. “Of course it was.” Nylora set the quill back on the shelf. “Was Caesar a wizard?”

“No, just a regular old Muggle, but not even the most bigoted of purebloods can deny his military advancements. Not even What’s-His-Face himself.”

“Ooh, that’s a new one. Never heard him called What’s-His-Face before.”

Nylora smiled. “The old Slytherin prefect used to call him What’s-His-Bucket.”

“ _ Nice _ .” They kept browsing. “You know any other cyphers, then?” Leah was a Ravenclaw; she knew knowing one thing usually lead to about eight other things.

“I’ve read about a lot, but I couldn’t necessarily recognize them. Keyword cyphers, for example. They’re much harder to spot.” Nylora studied the store. “Lucky they haven’t patented a cypher kit yet.”

“They haven’t?” That was surprising. “Muggle stores have had them for years; everyone I knew hit a cypher phase. We’d pass notes and think we were hot shit.”

“We’d be having a Cursed Vault scare every month if it were that common.” Nylora shook her head. “And I’d rather not go chasing after more dick jokes, so let’s hope they never are.”

“Just wait for the spring collection,” a voice rang out. Leah jumped. Nylora sighed. Ron grinned from where he was stocking a shelf with fireworks. “Good to see you again, Kayleigh.”

“You too,” she said on instinct.

He stacked the last box and wandered over. “Come to explain the internet?”

“Depends,” she said, “do you have a couple hours?”

He laughed. “No, I guess not. One of these days, though.” He looked at Nylora. “Come to see what you’ll be confiscating, then?”

“Know your enemy,” she said, smirking a bit like they were sharing a secret. “No better place to gather intel.”

“Well you’re not a very subtle spy,” he said, gesturing to the prefect badge on her chest.

“Don’t have to be. If I know their weapons I can anticipate their movements even better than if I knew who was doing it.” She shook her head. “Your customers fancy themselves to be Hogwarts’s next legendary pranksters but really they’re rather predictable.”

“Hogwarts should consider itself lucky you’re on their team.”

“Believe me, they do.”

Ron laughed. “Believe it or not,” he said, addressing Leah now, “our dear Nylora used to be the scourge of Hogwarts.”

She gave herself whiplash turning to see. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Nylora  _ actually  _ blushed ( _ what _ ).

“She was always in here, and I do mean always.” He snickered. “Think George and I were a bad influence on her.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourselves.”

A cloud of smoke billowed up beside them. “Yeah Ron, don’t flatter yourself,” a deep voice said, like the Wizard of Oz. Another sharply dressed ginger appeared from the smoke, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Our Ickle Ronniekins was never a prankster in his younger years,” he said, ruffling the man’s hair. “He was too busy saving the world with Harry Potter.”

Nylora crossed her arms. “I meant you too,” she said. “A  _ real _ prankster never gets caught, and  _ I _ never did.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, little prefect. Pranking is about the credit.”

She scoffed. “Such a Gryffindor thing to say.” A smile crossed her face. “Pranking is about watching the staff scramble to find the culprit, always one step behind.”

The new ginger (George?) grinned. “A truly Slytherin sentiment,” he said, and leaned towards Leah like they were sharing a secret as he stage whispered, “Careful with this one.” Nylora rolled her eyes again and turned slightly away, though Leah could still see the hints of a smile on her cheek. Her stomach fluttered.

He leaned back, his eyes scanning over her like he was doing a background check. “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Smoke bombs, right?”

“Yes,” she said, and blushed.

“Used them yet?”

“Not yet.” She’d sure been tempted, plenty of times, but she hadn’t used one. She hadn’t gone a day without one in her pocket, though.

“Might want to hurry. They’re known to explode at random the older they get.” He winked. She was only half sure he was messing with her. He stuck out a hand. “George Weasley.”

“Kayleigh Barnes.” She shook, choosing her given name.

“Oh, the  _ famed _ Kayleigh Barnes?” He wiggled his eyebrows, looking between his brother and Nylora. “The one that even got Harry Potter curious? The one that got our Nylora all antsy?” He looked back to her. “And you’re an American transfer right?”

“Yeah, this year.”

“This year!” he said, turning to the other two and mouthing the words with a mock incredulous look. “All this in a few months; my dear you’ve got Harry Potter quaking in his boots.”

Nylora sighed. “George knock it off.” She pushed past him. “Come on Leah, I’ve got something else to show you.”

“Ooh, she’s  _ showing _ her places.” George waggled his eyebrows over her shoulder. Nylora rolled her eyes into her skull and (giving plenty of time for her to pull away, she noticed) tugged Leah away.

“So they seem nice,” Leah said.

Nylora sighed. “They fancy themselves my weird uncles,” she said. “When I started school neither of them had children old enough to really teach the trade to. I guess seeing me fiddling with some of their products was enough to get them going, and eventually they connected me to some of the stories from other students.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

Leah crossed her heart. “I’m no snitch.”

Nylora smiled. “Thanks.”

(the rest of the Hogsmeade visit was spent with Nylora telling the stories of her greatest triumphs; if this was what she’d been missing Leah wished she’d managed to pluck up her courage to talk to her earlier)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nylora was not going to be big
> 
> and then she was
> 
> and i was like. 'well. guess both me and leah are gay now.' and that was that
> 
> one more chapter pals; see you saturday.
> 
> (as a side note, y'all hyped for harry potter: magic awakened or what??? no energy system?? RPG?? post-Battle of Hogwarts????? PROFESSOR LONGBOTTOM?????? BRO??????? )


	7. even wizards are subject to the laws of physics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry forgot it was saturday yesterday lmao time flies right?
> 
> ALSO LEAH TELLS A STORY IN THIS CHAPTER WHICH IS NOT MY OWN ORIGINAL CREATION, IT'S JUST TWEAKED; IF Y'ALL RECOGNIZE THE ORIGIN PLEASE GOD LINK IT TO ME BC I JUST SAW IT ON PINTEREST LIKE THREE YEARS AGO AND I COULD NOT FIND IT ANYWHERE

Leah was sort of surprised her friends took to Nylora so quickly. She’d been afraid of them being distrusting, but she came up to the table with Nylora and said, “Hi guys,” all nervous, and they took one look at them together and said, “Okay, we’re cool now.”

And that was that.

And  _ that _ was a relief.

“So Leah,” Simon said one afternoon, leaning forward, “it’s spooky season now.”

She looked up, raising an eyebrow (or tried to, Edward was still teaching her). “Yes, and?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you ‘yes and’ me, you know exactly what I mean. Tell us a Muggle scary story!”

“But they’re not scary for wizards,” she protested. “You guys can just solve half their problems with a flick of your wands.”

“Well they have to be at least a bit unsettling. Your miner story was freaky!”

Madam Pince hissed at them, glaring pointedly. Simon made a face at her as soon as her back was turned.

“There’s an excellent reading nook on the seventh floor,” Nylora said softly. “Hardly anyone ever goes up there.”

Simon nodded enthusiastically and started packing up. Edward followed suit. Nylora nudged Leah when she saw she wasn’t. “Come on, I’ve never heard a Muggle story before. I’m curious.”

Just like that she was sold.

(she chose to ignore Simon’s snickering)

The reading nook Nylora mentioned turned out to be the room that only turned up when you needed it (Ron and Professor Potter had called it the  _ Room of Requirement _ ; fancy). It was empty of people and filled with pillows and blankets and armchairs, with a fire roaring in one corner. Bookshelves lined the walls. Simon took one look inside and immediately shouted that they should build a pillow fort, throwing himself at a pile of blankets.

So that’s exactly what they did.

As it turned out, three Ravenclaws and a Slytherin could make a mean pillow fort. The thing stretched across most of the room when they were finished, like a cluster of naked mole rat tunnels. Leah had tracked down some christmas lights (Edward called them ‘fairy lights’ and she immediately seized the name) in one of the bookshelves and they’d strung them around the main section, and then buried themselves amidst a nest of pillows and blankets and stuffed animals (Simon found those).

“Not sure this is really a scary story atmosphere.” Leah laughed, hugging a yellow duck to her chest.

“No no, just wait.” Simon flicked his wand and the fairy lights dimmed, along with the main light source in the room. The fire crackled in the background, casting odd shadows over their faces.

“Better, much better,” Edward said.

Nylora propped her chin in her hands with a lazy smirk, one hand idly combing through the mane of the stuffed giraffe in her lap. “Come on then, Leah,” she said. “Scare us.”

Leah took a breath in. She’d been editing the story in her head a bit to appeal more to a wizarding crowd, but she thought she was ready. “So you remember how once I said all stories are rooted in truth?” she asked. “This is no different. See, in the costume lab of my old school, there was a mirror. There were all sorts of rumors surrounding the mirror, that if you looked at your reflection in low light it would warp and become something twisted. Some people said they saw a phantom reflection. Whatever the rumor, it was obvious it was haunted.

“Being a witch, I obviously went to check it out. If there was magic involved, then it must be a witch’s job to sort it out, right? And so I met the Man in the Mirror, and he told me his story.”

_ “See, long ago, before the mirror was here, it was in my apartment,” he said. “Back when I was on the other side of the glass. I bought the mirror at an antique store for a bargain, for its size. I thought I’d gotten off with a steal of a price, until I saw the shadows moving in the corner of my eye. And then,  _ **_she_ ** _ started appearing. _

_ “She told me she was trapped in the mirror, and that only I could save her. She told me there was a book the antique seller had taken with her mirror and if I could find that book I could get her out of the mirror. Obviously I agreed; I couldn’t just leave her in the mirror. I tracked down the book easy, but the hard part was performing the spell she said would save her. Lucky she could translate the ancient writings. Over the month of preparing I-- I fell in love with her. How could I not? She was clever, and she was witty, and ever-so-sweet. She’d say every day how eager she was to finally be on my side of the mirror. For us to be together, I thought. _

_ “The night of the full moon, I performed the ritual. The wind roared and the candles blew out and I could see her stretching behind the glass. I could see her reaching for the mirrored surface she’d never been able to cross-- _

_ “But the moment her fingers touched the glass, I was pulled inside. I didn’t just free her; I traded places with her. She’d never loved me, I realized then, she’d just used me to escape. I pounded on the glass; I begged her not to leave me, but she just smiled, picked up the book, and left me there. In one night I lost the woman I loved, and my entire life.” _

“That’s awful,” Simon said, bug eyed. “He’s just been stuck in the mirror?”

Leah nodded. “All this time.”

“And she took the book with her, so he can’t even use the same move,” Nylora mused. “That’s horrible.”

Simon clung to Edward. “Maybe it was a bad idea to let Leah tell stories.”

She half expected Edward to roll his eyes and say it wasn’t even that scary, but he just hugged Simon right back and nodded.

“Was it really that scary?” she asked, blinking.

“A bit unsettling,” Nylora offered.

“Terrifying!” Simon said. “I mean just imagine!”

“If that happened to us,” Edward said, and he met her eyes and waggled his eyebrows. She suddenly got what he was getting at.

“But it couldn’t,” Nylora said. “Real magic isn’t found in candle rituals.”

“But if you look past that,” Simon said, and shuddered. “ _ Yikes _ .” He shoved Edward’s shoulder. “Eddie you tell one quick before Leah gets going on an addendum.”

  
  


There was no such thing as coincidence. Not where magic was involved.

She was just chilling with Ginge, with Nylora off on patrol, Simon in detention, and Edward in Quidditch practice. They’d just been chatting, and Ginge brought up a new memory that had surfaced.

“I remembered my mum,” he said triumphantly.

“Dude  _ sick _ ,” she said, setting her work aside. “What’s she like?”

“Her name was Molly,” he said, savoring the name like a triumph. “Brilliant, she was. She’d make us all jumpers for Christmas with our initials. I remember my twin and I used to switch ours as a practical joke. And she didn’t shy away from taking our friends in either; my younger brother’s friend was getting his own sweater in his first year.” He grinned. “And you didn’t mess with our mum. She was a force to be reckoned with when we stepped out of line.” He chuckled. “You should’ve seen her when we flew the car to pick up my younger brother’s friend one year. Oh, she was  _ furious _ .”

She didn’t miss the mention of the car. She knew Ron had mentioned going with his brothers to pick Harry up, but he hadn’t mentioned their names. By  _ god _ , so close yet so far. She closed her book. “My mom--”

Her blood turned to ice. “Oh- oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my god,  _ no _ .”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t-- I don’t remember my mom’s name.” She gripped her head, hair tangling around her fingers. “How don’t I-- I  _ forgot _ my mother’s  _ name _ . That’s not something you just  _ forget _ .”

“Momentary lapse?” he suggested, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

She couldn’t even shake her head to disagree. Because hadn’t she forgotten the name of that pizza place oh so long ago? An easy detail to forget, except she’d been going to that same store for sixteen years, and always on important occasions. And little things kept slipping her mind, like the time she’d forgotten the make of her dad’s car, the one she would’ve inherited, another easy detail except her dad was so proud of that car and talked about it so much that she and her mother had joked that whatever poor soul had to do the autopsy on them would find the car’s make and model inscribed into their cranial tissue. And she’d forgotten the name of her best friend and her middle school, and  _ god  _ only knew what else, and it all seemed to line up with--

\--what  _ he _ was remembering.

“Correlation,” she gasped. “Between your memories and mine.”

He made the connection quickly. “You think that if I remember something you forget it?”

“You remembered your mom and I forgot mine,” she rambled, fingers digging into her skull like if she reached in deep enough she could scoop the memories out. “I forgot my car when you remembered yours-- what  _ else  _ could I be missing? Maybe I’m not--” she shot to her feet, shoving her things into her bag with reckless abandon. “Maybe I’m not an only child and I just forgot my siblings when you remembered yours. Maybe I have all sorts of friends in America I just forgot.  _ What else could I have lost _ ?” And she found she was choking back tears and she nearly broke a pencil in half as she crammed it in her bag.

“Leah, I’m so sorry, I  _ promise _ I didn’t know,” he said, but she made for the exit. “You’re not-- you’ll be back, won’t you?”

She looked back, and he had his hands pressed against the invisible barrier keeping him in the canvas. Her heart pounded in her ears; her blood roared in her veins; the tears blurred his figure.

“I can’t promise,” she choked, and bolted.

Her feet carried her at a dead sprint up to Ravenclaw tower. She  _ needed _ her phone, and she needed cell service and she needed to get away from this fucking castle and she needed to hear her mother’s voice  _ right fucking now _ .

“Where do Vanished objects go?” the eagle knocker asked patiently as she pounded up.

“ _ Away _ !” she all but screamed.

It took the answer without questioning, and she blasted through the common room, the adrenaline pounding through her veins so fiercely she didn’t hardly notice the stares she was getting (if anything the stares added to the fire in her veins as she seized her phone off the nightstand and tore back down the stairs, running for the Grand Staircase).

She blinked and she was on the grounds, tearing across the grass. The Ravenclaw team had left the supply closet open just as she’d expected; she’d only had a chance to ride a broom in class this year but she’d gotten quite good at it, good enough she thought she wouldn’t fall if she tried it now. She mounted without hesitation and blew into the sky, leaving the ground behind.

It wasn’t fast enough. It wasn’t far enough. She urged the broom on, until the wind was pulling tears from her eyes instead of brushing them from her face, urged the broom until the lights of Hogwarts faded into the distance, urged it until the trees thinned, urged until she saw a Muggle village in front of her.

Nobody was around to see it as she hurtled out of the sky, not bothering to slow her momentum further than necessary and tumbling off the broom into the grass. Miraculously, she emerged with little more than a few grass stains. The broom was entirely unscathed; she’d made a point to keep it safe.

She turned her phone on for the first time in months to see it was near dead.  _ No matter _ , she thought, looking up. There was an internet café mere feet away. Brushing the grass from her clothes and shrinking her broom, she made for the café.

She sobbed when her mother picked up the phone.

“Leah? Baby what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she managed. “Nothing, Mama, just-- homesick.”

“Oh, baby,” her mama cooed. “Do they send you home for Thanksgiving?”

“Not ‘til Christmas,” she said. “Thanksgiving’s just an American thing.”

“Oh right.” Her mom laughed, and her heart swelled at the sound (god, she’d missed her mom;  _ god _ she needed a hug from her mom). “How are things at school?”

“They’re great,” she said, and told her about Simon and Edward and Nylora, and an edited rendition of what they did in classes and reassured her that she was keeping her grades up and her nose clean, and her mom told her stories from the office and how their last date night ended with her father falling asleep in a cream pie with one foot in a bucket.

“It’s getting late, baby,” her mom said, finally, but still too soon. “You should probably go to sleep soon.”

She laughed and wiped the last of her tears. “I will, Mama. I love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

“Tell Dad I love him too.”

“I will. And don’t forget to thank your teachers for letting you violate the tech ban!”

She smiled. “I won’t.”

“Bye honey.”

“Bye.”

(she managed to make it back to the edge of town before she broke down again)

  
  


It was well past sunset when she finally touched back down on campus. The shed was closed again, but a simple  _ Alohomora _ took care of that. She left the broom with a soft, “Thank you,” and locked up after herself, trudging back up to the castle. The crash from the manic burst of energy that had carried her out the door left her wanting to just find a secret passage and lie down and never move again, but she forced herself to keep moving, keep placing one foot in front of the other.

“Miss Barnes,” someone said, sounding cheerful, “what are you doing up?”

She burst into tears.

Thankfully she was mostly cried out already, and it only took a minute to get ahold of herself. She wiped her eyes with a sleeve, looking up to see Professor Potter. She half smiled. “Could ask you the same, professor.”

“Do you want to join me in my office?” he asked kindly.

She wanted to curl up in a blanket nest and sleep for a century. She wanted someone to run their fingers through her hair as the fire crackled in the background. She wanted to feel entirely safe and entirely at ease and entirely at home. She wanted to be alone and with her friends in the same moment.

“Sure,” she said, because there could be only one reason he was in the castle this late and that meant her friends had reported her missing and god she couldn’t face them.

He made a hot chocolate this time. “I remember you said it was your favorite,” he said, setting the mug in front of her. She murmured a thank you and wrapped her hands around it, holding it up to just breathe in the smell. He settled himself across the low table from her, sipping his own drink. For a moment, they sat in silence.

Professor Potter broke it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She broke too. She told him everything, how she’d stumbled on the painting earlier in the year and wanted to help, how she’d thought maybe if he’d gotten his memory back he’d be able to leave, how they’d been gathering clues for it and how close they’d gotten, and how they’d gotten stuck, and then--her voice broke--how she’d realized that every memory he’d gained had been one she lost and--

“I panicked,” she finished softly. “I couldn’t-- I couldn’t stay. I just-- I  _ had _ to talk to my mom right that second before--” She buried her face in her hands, a few tears squeezing past her eyelids.

“You didn’t go to a professor?” Professor Potter asked softly. “Or me?”

She smiled wryly. “At my old school, the adults just looked at me like I was batshit crazy or completely stupid whenever I said anything. I mean-- I’ve just been on my own in a lot of things, and this was so much bigger than just course material. I-- I had no way of knowing whether you’d believe me or him or if you’d just decide to take matters in your own hands and destroy the painting.”

He nodded. “You couldn’t take that risk,” he finished for her. “I get it.”

“Yeah?”

“I usually tried to solve things on my own too.” He got a wry smile. “It only worked out some of the time.”

She buried her face in her hands. “I still don’t know how to fix it though.”

“I might,” he said.

Later, he explained it to her in more detail. “Names have a power all of their own,” he said. “Hermione’s mentioned this before. See, a name is just a collection of everything that person is. So, if we give him the name, we give him the memories in the name, with that functioning as the tradeoff.”

In that moment, though, she’d just had the first concrete lead to solving the whole thing dropped into her lap. They could fix it there and then.

_ Obviously _ she all but dropped her cup on the table and shot from the room like a bat out of hell, only pausing for long enough that Professor Potter could keep up.

She all but busted down the door to the secret room, the force of her entrance knocking the painting onto its back. She picked it up and propped it against the wall, breathless, staring at Ginge who seemed just as shellshocked as she was, albeit for a different reason. “We might have it,” she said. “The solution, I mean-- we might have it.”

He shot to his feet in the frame, but whatever he might have said was cut off by Professor Potter’s entrance, breathing hard.

“You run  _ so _ fast,” he said, shaking his head.

“Please do it,” she all but begged.

He looked into the painting, and she stepped aside, eyes flicking between their faces as Ginge’s eyes widened with recognition and Professor Potter’s softened into a fond look. “Haven’t changed a day, have you?” he asked rhetorically. “Good to see you, Fred Weasley.”

He said it so simply but the words rang with power, and the room seemed to shake. Ginge’s face split into a wide grin, and through her vibrating vision she could see him moving to the foreground of the painting. Her heart pounded as apprehension and excitement slid through her bloodstream; god she  _ hoped _ they weren’t wrong, and his hand approached the boundary where usually he would have stopped like a mime--

\-- _ and went through _ .

And the rest of him followed, and Fred Weasley stumbled back into the world.

She had to sit down.

“Harry!” he enthused, clapping the professor on the back. “You became a professor, huh? What happened to auroring?”

“Had enough fighting dark wizards to last a lifetime,” the professor said, a little watery eyed. They hugged, a real, full hug, and she looked away because this was most definitely none of her business.

Ginge--no, Fred--turned to her. “Thought you’d be taller,” he teased.

“Shut your beanstalk mouth,” she said, finding herself wiping away tears for what felt like the thousandth time that night. He offered her a hand up and pulled her into a hug.

“You never get to complain about ‘savior of mine’ again,” he mumbled into her ear.

She giggled. “Technically it wasn’t me who--”

“Don’t start, someone had to tell him.” He gently flicked her in the side of the head, pulling away. “You, dear Leah, have near single handedly saved my skin.”

“Not even close,” she said.

He waved her off, surveying the room. “I do see we’re missing two,” he said. “Which way to Ravenclaw tower?”

She grinned. “Follow me.”

(Simon screeched loud enough to wake the whole of the tower; Edward dropped a book on his toe and swore in German)

  
  


Leah heard the rest of the story secondhand; she’d crashed in an armchair while Fred and Professor Potter explained and woke up to find the sun streaming through the windows.

Turned out, they’d gone down to Hogsmeade village and found Mrs. Potter still awake, waiting for Professor Potter to come back. He’d come through the door and she’d asked after Kayleigh, and he’d said something similar to, “Brilliant, better than brilliant-- I think we owe her our lives now,” and Fred leaned out from behind him and Mrs. Potter nearly decked him. There was a lot of crying.

Mrs. Potter flooed to London immediately, popping out of the fire in such a state Ron nearly thought she’d been attacked. “So glad to find you awake,” she’d said, and Professor Potter popped out of the fire with Fred behind him and Ron said a few words Molly would’ve never approved of had she heard. Hearing the commotion, George came in wand drawn and-- well, nobody could really tell her that part in words. They’d just smile so bright it was like the sun had settled behind their faces, and she could infer. From there they flooed to the Burrow and nearly gave Molly a heart attack. Once they’d gotten over the shock Arthur sent Patronus messages to the remaining family members and it took hardly five minutes for the whole family to be in the kitchen, their next generation included.

By the time she woke up, the name Kayleigh ‘Leah’ Barnes was known to half the old Order of the Phoenix.

She didn’t know that, of course, until Professor Flitwick approached her in the common room and said that Professor McGonagall wanted to see her in her office. Every ounce of blood drained from her face until he reassured her that she was not in trouble. She made her way to the office, where Professor Potter was waiting with a smile and a vase of floo powder. Once he’d explained how to use it (not many American buildings had fireplaces) he’d told her to say ‘The Burrow’.

She’d spun until the centripetal force flung her out of the fire onto the living room floor.  _ Hell of a kick _ .

It was then that she discovered that all these people she hadn’t met knew her name and what she’d done. All these very  _ famous _ people, no less. People like  _ the bloody Minister of Magic, Hermione Granger herself _ . And, well-- she very nearly had a panic attack seeing the room packed full and all waiting for her. Molly shoved everyone unceremoniously out the door until Leah felt ready to face them, chiding Harry for not warning her.

It was a weird experience to have all these war veterans (the people who’d practically  _ lead the whole damn resistance _ , no less) shaking her hand and thanking  _ her _ . The loose cog in the machine, the mouse wandering the walls-- thanking  _ her _ . She tried to just say thank you and mention her co-conspirators at every possible instance.

“I had no idea how close I was, that day in Hogsmeade,” George said to her, that watery, disbelieving smile still on his face as he stared across the room at his twin (she’d noticed he never looked away for long). “When I was going off about what a fuss you’d raised.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t do much,” she said.

He scoffed. “Oh, really? This--” he gestured around the room-- “isn’t much?” He laughed. “You assembled the entire Weasley family in under an hour. I’d say that’s an achievement.”

The guilty knot in her stomach tightened. “You’re giving me too much credit. Simon and Edward helped a lot,” she said. “And really Professor Potter was the one to do it in the end. And I mean-- Edward brought up going to the professors for help straight off, so if anything I was the one dragging it out for unnecessary months.”

“Harry told me why you didn’t,” he said simply. “You know what Fred told me?”

“No,” she said, when it became clear he wanted a response.

“He said you were the one to find him,” he said. “And you didn’t give up.”

“Anyone could have.”

“Leah, twenty  _ years _ and no one did. Twenty years of students and the first person to run into the room was you.” He ruffled her hair. “You’re giving yourself too little credit.”

“Oi, Leah!” Fred hollered from across the room. “You want to see how a wizard household is run?”

“God,  _ do  _ I,” she said, hopping up, grateful for the excuse. “How do you people cope without  _ dishwashers _ ?”

(when she got back to the school, Simon made fun of her for not just taking all the credit herself. “We didn’t do a quarter of what you did,” he said, with Edward nodding agreement. “Good thing you took charge when you did or we’d be here till March.”

(“This morning,” Edward added, “while we were in the library, Simon looked at me and said, ‘Eddie, we’re idiots. He’s a _Weasley_. All the Weasleys fought in the war; we shouldn’t have been scanning census forms we should’ve cracked a history book’ and then he called himself a dumb cunt and Madam Pince kicked us out. Probably for the best that you take credit.”

(Next time she swung by Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes with Nylora, George said that if Nylora didn’t propose to her right there he would. Coincidentally, they were on their way to their second date)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so anyway that's that on that
> 
> i'm doing an [hphm rewrite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286335) where it mostly just dips back into the main plot points so idk if that sounds cool
> 
> tonks joins the gang in second year, timed sidequests actually affect the main story, in first year the mc takes both penny and ben with her in the end bc jam city can't stop me, penny doesn't just vanish during second year (bc she's ben's friend too, why doesn't she help find him?? THE BLACK QUILL WOULD'VE BEEN INFINITELY EASIER, PENNY COULD JUST CALL IN A FAVOR)
> 
> so if that sounds cool. go for it.
> 
> otherwise, **thanks for reading!**

**Author's Note:**

> please leave me a comment even if it's just one word, at the very least i'll know you're a real person thx
> 
> also if you have better title suggestions lmk bc my google doc is still just 'untitled document'


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